


Kintsugi

by witchbane



Series: the bridges we burned (may they light the way home) [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Angst, Blackmail, Character Death, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, Hate Sex, Hurt/Comfort, I just realized after looking at this how awful those tags are, I'm sorry lmao they end up in love I promise, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Russian Mafia, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Suspense, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-09-20 18:56:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 114,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9507638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchbane/pseuds/witchbane
Summary: Yuuri Katsuki is a hitman burdened with a debt he can never repay. His target: Viktor Nikiforov, next Pakhan to one of the most dangerous families in the Russian mafia.When the two are drawn into a treacherous alliance after a mission gone wrong, the bonds of love and loyalty to family and duty begin to unravel—even as they get more tangled up in each other.[Updates Mondays/Tuesdays]





	1. Dépaysement

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Kintsugi - Часть первая. "Мы сжигали мосты (чтоб дорогу домой нам осветили они)"...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13125117) by [Sheally](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheally/pseuds/Sheally)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dépaysement
> 
> 1\. The feeling of not being at home, in a foreign or different place, can be either a good or a bad feeling; change of scenery  
> 2\. (Obsolete) Exile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm weak for a mafia story, what can I say?
> 
> Please take the warnings seriously—this is a dark story and there will be violence, death, sex, and a lot of heavy feelings all around. Will add more as I go, so if you choose to keep reading please keep watching out for those tags.

* * *

 

He should have known better than to wear anything he actually liked when he was on the job. Tailored suits were expensive and difficult to replace, and blood always stained, no matter how quickly he tried to wash it out. Yuuri only tolerated these inconveniences for appearance’s sake—time had yet to completely erase his showman’s heart and the suit let him set the stage, to brace himself for the performance he gave himself over to night after night.

He had an outfit for every occasion, a different costume to slip into for each deadly dance he orchestrated. He had been doing this since he turned fifteen, and while his partners may have changed over the years, the step-by-step of his routine remained the same. Throw a coy glance here, place his fingers just-so there, take them up to a room, and then seal the deal with a blade to the throat or a bullet to the brain. From there it was only a simple matter of lather, rinse, repeat whenever he was called. He learned quickly enough that it was easier to forget, to become someone else underneath layers of wools and silks, to pretend that it wasn’t his hands or body or soul he was trying to scrub clean.

The _kumicho_ never gave him a name and he never bothered taking one. People talked so freely anyway, eager to gossip about the shadow always at the boss’ side, that the legend had practically built itself. Though few knew who he was or where he came from, everyone seemed to know at least one story of his gruesome, ugly work that they told in tones filled with something like admiration mixed with envy mixed with fear.  They asked in whispers about him. Was he a lover? An illegitimate son? Another common hand-for-hire?

They called him many things in the near decade since he started: killer, hitman, artist, monster.  The Japanese underworld their _Ace_ , and the rest of the world a demon.

But Katsuki Yuuri knew the truth. He only ever saw himself as a dog.

 

* * *

 

Knocking back a shot of vodka, Yuuri let the liquor burn slow and deep down his throat. It was the first of many he planned to have that night alone and he wanted to feel it in the morning, to be drunk sooner rather than later. Though he was usually more reserved with how much he alcohol consumed and never let himself get beyond tipsy in an unfamiliar city, it had been an exceptionally bad day and he needed something strong to forget all the mistakes he made in the last few hours. 

Nothing had gone right with this job. From the moment he stepped off the plane at Sheremetyevo International, a nervous energy prickled underneath his skin and wound his muscles up into tight coils. They ran in painful circuits from his neck and shoulders all the way down to the base of his spine. There was nothing about his current persona that could be called suspicious in any sense of the word, looking as he did like every run-of-the-mill tourist at the airport, but nothing could quell the sharp tug of anxiety in his gut. 

There was just something so inherently _wrong_ about being in Russia that set him on edge, as if he were standing at the top of a very tall building, balanced precariously and ready to drop. 

Yuuri could count on one hand the number of people who knew what he was doing there and have fingers to spare, but it still felt like everyone was watching him. He had taken all the necessary steps to cover up his tracks beforehand. He went as far as spending months in America, crafting multiple untraceable identities and gathering as much intelligence as he could before leaving the country. Under two names, he booked separate flights to take him from Detroit to Amsterdam to Moscow, where he then bought a train ticket to Sochi that he paid for in cash.

Not even his handler knew the exact date Yuuri was set to arrive—only that he was going to be in town by the time the meeting was to take place. They cut off contact in the last two months before the trip, agreeing vaguely on a time and place before they separated, passing each other on the street like two ships in the night. Last he’d heard, Celestino Cialdini flew out ahead of schedule to arrange Yuuri’s transport back to North America. Something for which he was immensely grateful, as the added burden of sneaking out from under the Bratva’s thumb after this mission was something he did not want to deal with. He trusted Celestino with his life, though the older man knew him only by the alias _Vicchan_ for as long as they’d been acquainted.

But while he had done everything right, he couldn’t stop the mounting terror that threatened to shake him out of his skin. It seemed like his presence alone should have set off alarms, signaling to every available boyevik within a ten mile radius to greet him with the barrel of a gun the moment he set foot in enemy territory.

For several awful moments before exiting the plane, barely able to breathe through the sudden tightness in his chest, he imagined just how the scenario play out. Would he even make it a foot out the door before he was shot? Would they grab him as he got onto the tarmac and beat him until he talked? His heart remained clenched as he checked into customs, thankful for the puffy jacket concealing the sweat stains he could feel soaking into the soft material of his shirt. Didn’t let himself so much as breathe until his papers held under inspection—Ken Nakamura, a tourist born in rural Ohio, age nineteen, never left the country before trying to go solo in Moscow for the next two weeks—and airport security, barely sparing a glance, waved him through into the bitter Russian winter. 

Yuuri had done this same dance a thousand times before, but this one felt somehow monumental. 

The _kumicho_ had given him orders to disrupt a massive drug deal between the Feltsman Bratva and the Sungiru Pa, preferably with both bosses dead by the end of the night and a massive feud brewing between two of the largest syndicates in Asia. With any luck and a lot of ambition, both would collapse, pulled to pieces by other smaller families struggling for power and smelling blood in the water. 

It had taken him months of grueling hard work just to get this close. He cashed in favor after favor, extorted and bribed his way to the barest hint of a lead. While there was no love lost between the Koreans and Russians, this treaty was intended to broker a peace between the underground networks of the two nations, starting with a monopoly on trade via the East China Sea. The _kumicho_ had not known much more beyond this when he first sent Yuuri off on an impossible mission to somehow stop the deal from happening. Even Yuuri’s regular contacts were surprisingly tight-lipped about this issue, simply shuddering around the name _Viktor Nikiforov_ when asked, as if uttering the words out loud caused them pain.

Yuuri knew who he was, of course. How could he _not_? In the circles they both ran, the next Pakhan of the Feltsman Bratva was not someone to be crossed. Since he joined the family business at the age of fourteen, he had survived five separate assassination attempts and had never been in a fight he hadn’t won, collecting enemies like one would medals. If Yuuri was a shadow at his boss’ side, then Viktor was certainly the sun—searing and golden and dangerous if one looked too closely or at all.

The thought of meeting him twisted that sharp something in Yuuri’s stomach, but his fear meant little to the _kumicho_ if it protected his business interests abroad. So he spent the last six months in America, panicking out of his mind over the who-what-when-where-why details of the deal, until it was finally time for him to board the plane and fly headlong into danger. 

“You’re looking well, Ciao Ciao,” Yuuri greeted the older man as he walked up from behind, taking a place across the small table. They were seated underneath the awning of an outdoor cafe, though the weather seemed too cold to permit such a thing, in one of the busier shopping strips in Sochi. It seemed like ages ago that they agreed to meet here. As it was, Yuuri had already been in the city for a little over three days. He felt restless taking long walks through the crowded streets and going on guided tours as if he were here on vacation. In truth, he was just biding his time until he could slip into the familiar routine of a job.

Celestino hadn’t changed much in the months since they’d last spoken face-to-face: long hair draped fashionably over one shoulder, tanned Italian skin, and a strong jaw that ticked with the upward turn of his warm smile; he was dressed in a thick black turtleneck under a snug gray blazer, and had on white pants to complete the ensemble. Yuuri suddenly felt underdressed in his bulky parka, though he knew there was no possible way he could have looked as effortlessly good and cool as the other man. 

“Thank you! This weather doesn’t seem to agree with me but I do my best under the circumstances,” the man laughed and waved over the nearest waitress, ordering some coffee for the both of them. He reached into his blazer when she left and, with a practiced hand, pulled out a nondescript envelope that he tucked underneath a menu and slid over to Yuuri. “How was your trip, by the way? I expect there were no delays?” 

“None,” Yuuri murmured, stowing away the envelope in his own coat, and opened the menu. The selections were thankfully written in English and he ordered the first thing he recognized as soon as the waitress came back with their coffees. “It’s been a good couple of days, actually. But there’s only so many tours you can go on before you get tired of the city.” _No one noticed it was me. I’ve secured a location and scouted the area. I need the time and place of the hit._

“That’s good to hear. If you’re looking for something to do tonight, I recommend a place downtown called the Grand Prix. Take it from the bartender,” Celestino said with an exaggerated wink that made Yuuri smile, “they serve great cocktails. Cheap even after happy hour.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” He sipped his coffee and let the conversation lapse to other things, enjoying his short meal with the Italian before they parted ways for the rest of the afternoon.

 

The sky was dark and streetlights started coming on outside by the time he got back to his hotel room—cheap and tacky, just on this side of disgusting, and exactly the way he liked when he was on the job.

The envelope made a crinkling noise inside his parka so he took it out, smoothing over its creased edges with gentle fingers. Inside was a tightly bound set of forged travel papers, as well as legitimate plane tickets that would take him to Berlin come morning and over to his connecting flight to New York. With trembling hands, he pressed the bundle to his chest and blinked back tears against the suddenly too bright overhead lamp. It felt real now. The weight of his only way out seemed to grow heavy in his grip, reminding him that he only had one chance to get this right.

The suit he packed for that night was made from a fabric so black it looked as if it had swallowed up the night, seeming darker still against the crisp white of his dress shirt and the way its thin lapels caught the gleam of whatever ambient lighting was in the room. It was sleek, cut close to the elegant lines of his body, and obviously expensive, but only just enough to melt him into the background of the type of high class bar or gentlemen’s club his targets often frequented. 

He liked this part best, this little silver lining around the awful reality of his work. There was something heady in the way he could move a gaze on or off himself. The simplest twitch of his muscles could change an atmosphere, drawing all eyes to him or allowing him to become as plain and unassuming as the fixtures of a room.

Slicking back his hair, Yuuri braced himself against the sink of the shabby hotel bathroom and ran through his plan once more. All of his possessions had been shoved into a trash bag that he would toss into a dumpster before he left; the room key was wiped down and placed in the ashtray by the bed; the furniture was disheveled enough to leave the impression of having been lived-in, whenever someone came to clean out the space. Even if the Bratva managed to track him down—but they couldn’t, wouldn’t, when he’d been so careful—not a trace of him would stand out in the dirty room, with no cameras in sight to catch his face and few who had glimpsed at him long enough to even make an impression.  He would never set foot in here again.

But the nervous energy never left him. His forged papers were strapped flat against his inner thigh, burning so hotly against his skin that he was sure everyone else could feel it too. He would have felt better if he were going in with more than just a wallet flush with cash and a small knife tucked into his sleeve, but traveling from one country with a gun was hard enough and all his connecting flights made it impossible.

By the time he got out of the cab and stepped into the dimly lit club, Yuuri had almost completely worked himself into pieces. From outside, the Grand Prix was an unassumingly squat two-story affair, nestled on the end of a fashionable street in Sochi. Upon first glance, the only curious thing about the building was the long line of people waiting to get in, but Yuuri could see why as soon as the bouncer waved him through the door with a single glance at his suit.

He was greeted by the low thrum of music pulsing out of the room, then by the sway of bodies moving to its rhythmic beat. They were all beautiful, he noted, absurdly pretty and well-dressed people pressed against each other, surrounded by the heady atmosphere created in part by dim lighting and intoxication. White marble columns and gilded mirrors circumscribed the room, which was dotted with plush leather seats where elegant people could sprawl the entire length of their bodies, heads rolled back in giddy pleasure. At the very end of the room was a half-moon bar, set off against an impressive display of bottles backlit in red, where Celestino was pouring drinks for a flock of young women. 

Choosing a seat at the very end, Yuuri watched the crowd with interest. It was difficult to catalogue faces in the half-light, but he tried to anyway. His eyes flitted across each strung out expression as if their owners were his targets for the night. None of them were, of course, but he couldn’t be sure when both groups would arrive to start negotiations. 

Celestino took his time walking over, quirking a small flirtatious smile when he finally asked Yuuri for his order and to which he said, “Champagne.” There wasn’t even a spark of recognition in the other man’s eyes when he nodded, simply popping open a new bottle and pouring the foaming lip over a delicate flute. Yuuri shivered as Celestino’s fingers brushed across his palm, passing the hard shape of a key into his sleeve in the same motion that he handed over the stem of the glass. “Thank you. Start a tab for me, will you?” His voice was soft and barely heard over the din of the room, but he hoped the smile he returned said everything.

_Thank you. I owe you. I’ll take it from here._

“Put it on mine.” A smooth voice drifted by his ear and the muscle in Yuuri’s jaw suddenly jumped. He refused to meet Celestino’s gaze, afraid of what he would see there, before he turned around and found himself staring directly into the smiling face of Viktor Nikiforov.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think below. I haven't written anything in literally YEARS but I'm also absolutely weak for _Yuri!!! On Ice_ now apparently so this happened.


	2. Pyrrhic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyrrhic
> 
> 1\. (Of a victory) Won at too great a cost to the victor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at end of chapter.

* * *

Even in the half-dark, he was unmistakable.

Cool eyes were set like jewels in his pale face, high cheekbones curved into the supple bow of his lips. His silvered hair was afire, trapping in the red light coming from the bar, casting long dark shadows that cut into his features. It distorted them, made him look strange and slightly out of step with the rest of the world.

But he was beautiful still, always.

There was a picture of him in the first dossier Yuuri ever got. It was a grainy thing, printed from some low quality CCTV footage and tucked into the files like someone's afterthought. He was sixteen then, and long haired and slim, and he swam in the folds of a fur coat that probably cost more than Yuuri was worth. He should have looked ridiculous like that—this child playing at being an adult—but there was an undeniable presence about him, even in stillness.

It was the sharpness of his eyes, the certain way they caught the camera and held the phantom gaze behind it. He looked so sure of himself, staring down his invisible observers, face turned fully as if there was nothing to hide. Those eyes were confident in a way that no one could fake.

Viktor was exactly the opposite of him in that regard. No one thought Yuuri was going to make it past his first year, let alone his first mission; everyone had written him off as a waste of space, told him time and again that he would fail, that they'd find someone else to satisfy his debts when it happened. They used to take pleasure in saying it too, their mouths cut into sharp smirks whenever they got a chance to rile up the _kumicho_ 's pet dog. The memory of it was still sour in his mouth, like too much bile curled up in the back of his throat. It urged him to always work longer and harder than the next man so that he could never and would never be replaced.

Yuuri kept a collection of photos in his room at the compound after that. His own private dossier on Viktor Nikiforov was extensive. And probably the most complete profile of the man in the business, barring the intelligence of his own family. He admired him—because while fear made Yuuri good, Viktor's fearlessness made him the _best_.

And now Viktor was staring down at _him_. Yuuri felt pinned down, couldn't hope to read the expression in those fierce eyes. All he could see was the way the blues of them turned depthless, blackening in the red neon lights. "Of course," Celestino said from somewhere behind the bar. But his voice was far away, powerless to break the moment when Yuuri's heart seized to a full stop. "And for you, sir?"

Dangerous. Stupid. Making contact with the target when he was supposed to stay _anonymous_ —this was literally the last thing he wanted and would probably do.

"I'll have the same." Viktor's eyes never strayed from him. They remained fixed even as Celestino handed him a flute of champagne and he reached for it absently with one gloved hand. The other he used to press a finger to his own mouth, contemplating something for a brief moment, before drawing the pad of it down Yuuri's bottom lip. "What is your name? What shall I call you?"

"Haru," Yuuri said. His throat was sticky around the lie. The tip of his tongue met Viktor's finger as he spoke, tasting the leather there, and the urge to bite shut the seam of his lips was almost unbearable.

_Does he know? What does he know? How could he possible **know**?_

Panic washed over him, like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head, made him want to bolt straight out of his seat from the shock of it going through his skin. Questions whirled in dizzying figures around his head. He ran through every possibility of Viktor's game. Was this a setup, or some elaborate ruse; when had they figured it out and why did they let him through in the first place; what were they going to do to him? It took all his self-restraint not to turn, grab Celestino, then run out of the building screaming for his life.

"Ha-ru," the Russian repeated after him, voice colored in his rich accent. Each syllable fell heavy from the back of his throat as he sounded out the name and he looked inordinately pleased with himself, fingers still resting gently against Yuuri's face. "Haru, then. Will you share a drink with me?"

_Do I have a choice?_

The answer to that was clear. So he nodded instead and let Viktor replace his finger with the cool press of a champagne flute, tilted slowly into his parted mouth. The alcohol was airy and sweet, and he couldn’t help the way his tongue swiped against the glass to chase after its taste. Neither could he help the way his eyes hooded over when Viktor finally took his own drink, mouth fitted carefully on the rim where Yuuri had just touched, finally coming to the absurd and impossible and certain conclusion that— _oh, oh! Viktor was flirting with him! He didn’t know, didn’t suspect, thank god, thank god!_ —and that was something he knew how to do.

A laugh almost tripped out of him then. One he disguised behind a sip of champagne, which turned quickly into another and another, until he had downed the whole glass in his nervousness. “And you,” he said, easing into a question he already knew the answer to, “What can I call you?”

“For you, зайчик, it’s Viktor.” The look in his eyes was familiar, more so to Yuuri than even his own face at times. It was the look of a predator, a man on the hunt; his eyes were narrowed and all calculation, the corner of his lips turned upwards but without warmth. Yuuri had seen this face on a dozen men and women, targets who had taken a single glance at him and expected him to bend under the sheer force of their will, either for money or sex or sometimes just to show him that they _could_ and they _would_.

But instead of a lamb at their feet, meek and mild and yielding, they found _Yuuri_.

“You’re not from here, that much is clear,” Viktor continued easily, charismatically. “What brings you to Sochi from…?”

“America,” Yuuri filled in. He slipped into the lie he must have practiced a thousand times by now. There were many late nights he spent over the last six months just poring over videos and sound files, working his tongue through words until they no longer felt clumsy around this new accent. He wiped his mind clear of anything else as he spoke, trying to live out the lie he created. “And nothing important, really. I needed a vacation and I thought, well, this place seems just as good as anywhere else. Underestimated the cold, though.”

If he learned anything in those early days on the job, it was that impressions were oftentimes more important than the reality of a situation. No one looked twice at Yuuri as he usually was, so plain and unassuming—but in the right light, he could draw every eye towards him like moths to a flame. With some skill, he could walk bare-faced into a crowd and come out described in a hundred different ways. He tried to do that now, become part of the scenery, the music pounding something low and electric in the dark. His voice went smoky and loose through his smile, his eyes heated and peering out from underneath the thick fan of his lashes. Here, he was just another person looking for a good time. Here, he was no one special to a man like Viktor Nikiforov, except perhaps another warm body in his bed and another face to forget.

“I disagree,” Viktor said, taking both of their champagne flutes and setting them down at the bar. He stepped closer into the bracket of Yuuri’s legs, leaning over to press his mouth flush against the other man’s ear. “Vacations are very important. It’s a time for enjoyment. Pleasure, too.” This time, Yuuri did let out a laugh, the sound fluttering through his chest as Viktor’s hand found its way to his hip. “I could show you all that, if you’d like. I could be your guide tonight.”

Yuuri was barely able to breathe out a, “Yes,” before he was pulled up and out of his seat, crushed into a knot of people dancing at the center of the room. An arm wrapped around his waist tight; a hard body swayed behind him to the feverish beat of the music. Yuuri melted into the embrace, fitting himself—shoulder to shoulder, back to chest, his ass into the cradle of a hip—all along Viktor as they moved.

It was headier than champagne. Yuuri felt drunk with how close they were. The tangle of dancers surrounding them forced their bodies to almost mesh together, and Yuuri let his head loll back into the curve between Viktor’s shoulder and neck. When they moved, it was together, as if there had been a hundred dances shared between the two of them instead of just this one.

Then the music changed to something slower, hotter, pulsing like a heartbeat through the floor. He twisted to face Viktor, mouthing all along the soft underside of his jaw to distract from his roaming hands. They groped down the Russian’s sides and back until they found their way to his ass. Yuuri could have laughed with how easy it was to case the man; he pretended not to notice when his fingers ghosted over the thick leather holster at Viktor’s waist or the hard shape of a gun nestled at the small of his back. It would take a second or two to draw, if it came to that; Yuuri would have to kill him before he could.

A toned thigh slid between his legs and they grinded against each other, the movement filthy and rough, more suited to the privacy of a bedroom than even the crowded club. Viktor withdrew just a breath apart from him. For a moment, Yuuri was sure that the other man was going to kiss him and dared to imagine the way his sharp, dangerous smile would taste. Their lips were so close, separated only by the blink of an eye.

It was a blessing and a curse when they were interrupted. A black-suited man pushed up from out of the crowd and said something in Russian to Viktor, who jerked back so suddenly that his entire body came apart from Yuuri’s. The added space between them was enough to knock him back to his senses, dispelling the drunken haze caused by Viktor’s touch. It was enough to remind him of what he was here for— _that if Yuuri did his job right, then this man would be dead by the end of the night._

Some heated words were exchanged before Viktor’s attention turned back to him, saying in a tone full of apology, “I’m sorry, зайчик. I have some business to settle tonight. Will you wait for me?” His fingers moved to cup the back of Yuuri’s neck and tightened approvingly when the other man nodded. Viktor worked off both the leather glove on his left hand and the golden signet ring on his finger, which he then pressed into Yuuri’s palm. “Xорошо. I have a private room upstairs—just show them this and order anything you’d like from the bar. I’ll be there soon.”

And then—then, Viktor _kissed_ him, ferocious and smoldering. Yuuri felt more than heard the gasp tearing itself out of his throat. A hand threaded through his hair, pulling him into the heat of Viktor’s mouth. It was barely even a kiss; he didn’t move his lips, just let them pull open like the petals of a flower; but it was still almost too much, up until the second Viktor pulled away, when it was suddenly _not enough_.

He stood there for a long stretch of time, surrounded by the sway of dancing bodies, and watched Viktor disappear into the back of the club.

 

* * *

 

“What the fuck took you so long?” Yuri growled out as soon as Viktor stepped into the backroom of the club. The blonde teenager was slouching against the wall, and the scowl on his face made him seem much older than his fifteen years on earth. “The Lee boss is already waiting in the back. If this deal goes bad, it’s on your ass.”

“Must you?” Viktor replied, raising his eyebrow at the impertinent tone. “I already have one Yakov hounding me at all hours of the day; I don’t need another one.” Said man was probably in negotiations already, entertaining the boss of the Sungiru Pa because Viktor had failed to arrive on time.

It wasn’t completely his fault. He walked into the club that night with every intention of heading straight to the back and finishing up the contract with the Korean mob when his eyes had been drawn to the slender figure of a man making his way towards the bar. There wasn’t anything special about him at first glance, except, perhaps, the obviously expensive suit he wore. But there was a decisiveness to his every move that Viktor immediately noticed, a wellspring of grace as he slipped through the throng of dancers, like water through the spaces between cupped hands.

Viktor had wanted him then, already. But it was nothing compared to the immediacy and desperation he felt when they started dancing. The man’s face was indiscernible; the shadows and lights sculpted his features into something impossible to make out, and Viktor wouldn’t have cared if he looked like a pig because his body moved like music. The man was all pleasant curves as they held onto each other in the dark, all hidden strength coiled tight in his muscles as their touches grew more frantic and heated. Viktor had almost taken his own guard’s head clean off when they were interrupted, and had so savagely wanted the man in his bed that he offered him the ring off his own finger in promise.

Not to mention that _kiss_ —

“Hey, what happened to your ring?” As ever, Yuri managed to interrupt all his more enjoyable thoughts.

Viktor only shrugged, rolling the stiffness out of his shoulders as he put his glove back on. This meeting was simply a formality both Yakov and the Lee boss insisted upon. The deal was done as far as he was concerned: the drugs were ready to ship at his word come morning, money was in the process of being transferred to their accounts in Saint Petersburg, and a new alliance between the Feltsman Bratva and the Sungiru Pa would be born after tonight. It was so tedious and boring going through these motions, especially when he had better things to do.

His mind was already hours away, in a penthouse suite at the top of Sochi’s most luxurious hotel, and on the king-sized bed where he would lay out his prize like a meal and have him all night.

“Didn’t anyone teach you to mind your own business, Yura?” Viktor said cheerfully, making his way over to the negotiations room. “I’ll have it back by the end of the night, if all goes as planned. Besides, you’re not even supposed to be here, so I don’t want to hear any lectures from you.”

Yuri ignored the last part, pretending to gag instead. “What the fuck does that mean? If you’re thinking with your dick again—“

Viktor held up a hand and Yuri immediately quieted down. The end of the hall came into view, and with it a single steel door, guarded by four men: two Korean, who watched him stiffly from the corner of their eyes, and two of his own boyeviks, who greeted them with slight bows and fists to their chests.

Yakov was already there, as expected, seated in front of the Lee boss. A bottle of half-drunk vodka was laid out between them, along with three cut-crystal glasses that caught in the dismal light of the room. Only a smattering of men dotted the field on either side and the tension was palpable. They were all tense and at ready, carefully watching each other for any suspicious moves and turning in almost unison towards the door when it opened. Yuri settled into one of the extra chairs at the far end of the table and Viktor made his way to the Lee boss, smiling, palms up to show that he had no weapons.

“Boss Lee! So good of you to make it,” Viktor said. The aged Korean mobster slowly rose out of his seat, accepting the hand Viktor held out to him. Their forearms pressed together tight for a brief moment, hand-to-elbow, before they let go. “It’s a momentous night for both our families.”

“I’m glad to do at least this much before I retire,” Lee said. They settled into their seats and Viktor poured himself two fingers of vodka into the third, unused glass. He held it up in a toast for the two older men. “My grandson sends his regards for the samples you shipped over. Seung-gil doesn’t show it much, but he was impressed with your product.”

Viktor smirked around the rim of his glass; he still tasted the champagne from earlier that night and hoped business would wrap up quickly. “Only the best to honor our new partnership, of course. Now, onto more pressing matters…”

 

* * *

 

The ring was heavy and heated through from the warmth of Viktor’s skin. Yuuri twisted it in his hands as he walked off the dance floor. He didn’t know what to do with it; he wanted so badly to leave it behind for someone else to find, but his fingers stayed tightly wrapped around the golden thing, and he ended up just shoving it into his pocket to deal with another time.

A quick glance at the bar told him Celestino had already left. He was probably getting ready to leave the city, if not on his way out by now. They both agreed not to take the same transport out, so either by train or a car with faked plates—something discreet to get him across borders using the roads. It was better this way, Yuuri tried to convince himself. If the mission went badly then Celestino wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire, would live to see another day. After all he had done for Yuuri as a friend and handler, he deserved that much.

Still, he wished Celestino was there with him, how he’d been since Yuuri began taking international contracts for the _kumicho_. Yuuri missed the way the Italian’s comforting lilt guided him through each plan, turning over each detail again and again so that they would both be ready for anything. This job was nothing like that, though. It was vague, the information so sparse and difficult to make sense of that he was going in practically half-blind. It was almost like trying to look through a window that hadn’t been cleaned quite right: the shape was there, but everything else was blurry.

Using Celestino’s key, Yuuri slipped into the empty breakroom just off the bar and found a dark waiter’s jacket hanging on a hook for him. He pulled it on over his suit, along with the black travel mask tucked into one of the pockets, and made his way further back of the club. He ended up in a long hallway illuminated by dim fluorescent lights. Sound travelled strangely through the walls. Though he could still hear the thumping beat of music coming from the front of the building, it was faint, and it echoed eerily around him.

Underneath the music he heard movements that led him down the hall and around a corner, where four men stood guarding a single steel door. None of them were talking, just looking suspiciously at each other, their hands fisted into hard balls at their side and just waiting to draw out the guns even Yuuri could see plainly holstered at their hips. They hadn’t bothered to hide them; the display was meant to scare off the other side in a pissing contest of the worst kind, and Yuuri felt almost giddy with relief.

It was going to be easier than he first thought to turn them against each other. They were halfway there already. All he had to do was give them a reason to go from half-cocked to guns blazing.

He eyed the Russians, and then the small knife in his hand, thinking about the odds. There was such a small opportunity to pull this off and it depended entirely on surprise. But he could do it, he was sure of it now, if he was quick enough and sure enough.

Throwing a knife was all about conviction, he told himself, locking his wrist into position. He just had to aim, and trust, and let go—

One of the Russians fell back, hitting the wall with an audible thunk. A scream gurgled out of his lips. Dark, hot blood poured out from his gaping mouth and from the open wound in his neck where the knife had wedged itself cleanly. The other guards stood still, too shocked to move as they watched the man die.

The guard was still scrabbling at his throat, desperate and terrified, when Yuuri rounded the corner with a shout. Four sets of eyes swung towards him in confusion, watching as he wove down the corridor, then widened in shock as he barked out a command in unmistakable Korean, “ _Kill them!_ ”

And that was all it took.

The remaining boyevik cursed, gun in hand in half a second, taking aim at one of the stunned kkangpae and shooting him in the head. Yuuri rushed in as he pulled the trigger, knocking the Russian off-balance. He pried the gun loose from the boyevik’s hands. The weight of the steel felt like the center of the universe in his palm; the smell of gunpowder and blood mixed heavy in the air.

The door opened in a violent burst and Yuuri shot, hitting another Russian, before the scene descended into chaos. Men pressed out of the room—at least a dozen, none of them the real targets—in a flurry of motion, shouts, and gunfire. Another Russian, one of the Koreans, and then another. Man after man tripped over each other into their death. Yuuri had to waste only one more bullet before he got in through the doorway, the two delegations so eager to tear into each other that he was able to move through the knot of them quite easily.

It was _Viktor_ he was after, _Viktor_ who he had to kill first, before he could draw out his gun.

A flash of silvery hair caught in the corner of his eye. Yuuri aimed before he could even fully turn and the recoil of the shot thundered through his arm almost as loudly as his heart. A body dropped, knocking over a bottle on its way down, slumping bonelessly into the surface of a table. Pulse in his throat, Yuuri whirled around to see, to confirm his kill.

Except it wasn't Viktor lying there, dead. This man was older, Asian, silver hair looking much more gray now that Yuuri could see him clearly. He was shorter than Viktor should have been, his wrinkled face caught somewhere between a snarl and a scream. Blood pooled to make a dark bed for him, gushing out from the hole in his chest. The Lee boss.

Yuuri only had a second to throw himself to the ground. Even then, the bullet just barely missed him. It whistled high and sharp in his ear as it cut through the air. He looked up and saw Viktor, whose expression was a sheet of smooth ice. The weapon in his hand was the very promise of death and Yuuri understood, fully, in that moment, why the whole world was afraid of him. This was the man who never missed.

There was a commotion behind him as more men tumbled into the room. Yuuri used the distraction to roll himself underneath the table, gathering his bearings as he tried to reassess the situation. Back-up had arrived, for the Russians and Koreans alike; they had probably been on stand-by in the club until they heard the unmistakable sounds of gunfire in the back. There were too many people now, making it impossible to get a clean shot without taking a bullet to the head.

And there was no way—not now—not when Viktor had his gun—to fix this. All Yuuri could do was run.

Spurred on by the thought, Yuuri wove through the room in a crouch, bolting out the doorway and back into the dim hall. Men were still fighting there, but if they noticed his shadowy figure moving half-pressed to the wall, they ignored him. The smell of so much blood and gunpowder burned sour in his sinuses, even with the mask on. It made the bile rise in his throat as he pushed, through and through, to get back to the front of the building where it would be easier to slip away unnoticed.

He was almost to the breakroom when a body hurtled into his back, knocking him against the wall. Yuuri fumbled for his gun, finger already on the trigger, when the pale face of a teenager came into view. The blonde was young, really much too young to have been allowed inside the club in the first place, with an expression pulled into a tight grimace of pain. His tongue was red, and so swollen that every snarled word came out unrecognizable as it fell out of his mouth. Yuuri flinched when the boy collapsed into him, reaching out to catch the thin shaking body, his hands coming away wet with hot blood. He tightened his grip as footsteps approached them from around the corner and half curled into the boy, steeling his arm as he let out one, two, three shots that killed the men in quick succession. The boy went limp, then, and Yuuri had no choice but to drag him up like a child and carry them both into the breakroom just steps away.

It took him a moment to shrug out of his jacket, wrapping it tight around the blonde's side to stem the flow of blood. He couldn't see the wound; it might have been too late already, if it caught the boy's gut, but he was only a kid and Yuuri would never forgive himself if he didn't at least try. Plans circled through his head as he tried to figure out the best way out of the building, especially now with another person, when a voice hissed in the dark, " _Vicchan_."

Yuuri's heart stuttered when Celestino emerged from the shadows, eyes wide and a gun his own hands. "Ciao Ciao," he breathed out, for a moment in relief, and then in worry. "What are you _doing_ here? You should have left a while ago."

The Italian shook his head, moving forward to clasp Yuuri about the shoulders. "And leave you to deal with Nikiforov alone? No way." The sentiment made tears well up in Yuuri's eyes. Celestino was steering him towards the door leading out into the bar, still talking, "We have to hurry, while everyone's distracted. My car is out back." He threw a glance at the boy in Yuuri's arms, but ultimately ignored it when the other man tightened his grip around the blonde, holding fast as if to stop the suggestion edging out of Celestino's mouth. "We have to go."

And then he was tugged into the riot of the dance floor. People were frantic, shoving and screaming at each other over the _pop-pop-pop_ of gunfire. Everywhere he looked was chaos; another black-suited boyevik or kkangpae, another person trampled underfoot, another horrified face that added to the reel running in continuous motion in Yuuri's mind. It was only Celestino's arm, still wrapped around him and guiding him towards an unmarked door, that steadied his feet, kept the world from tilting sideways.

Someone spotted them just as they reached the door. Yuuri felt the shot tear into one of Celestino's shoulders; the force of it knocked them both forward hard, and he thought for a single moment that it had been him that was hit. "Ciao Ciao," Yuuri gasped, turning, afraid, the boy in his arms swaying with the motion. The older man pushed him through the door and shoved another key into his hands. "Wait—"

Celestino looked at him with grim determination, as if half his arm had not been blown to pieces. "Go."

 

The backroads were empty and quiet. Yuuri sped through them carelessly, couldn't think beyond the next turn he had to take, the next intersection he had to cross. They had left the fight many streets back, the sirens and gunshots fading into stillness as Yuuri navigated through the unfamiliar city.

He had failed his mission. There was a teenager bleeding out in his backseat. And Celestino was probably dead.

Somehow, Yuuri found his way back to the cheap hotel he'd been staying at and pulled into the parking lot. There was nowhere else for him to go except here, so he broke into his old room and dragged the unconscious boy into the bed. He felt numb as he pulled apart his makeshift tourniquet, as he prodded at the boy's injury to see if he would even live. He barely felt relief when he cleared away the blood and saw that the bullet had barely grazed the boy's side. It didn't take him long to tear some clean bedsheets into strips and wrap up the wound. The boy would live long enough for Yuuri to call for help; by then he'd be away from this room, on his way to catch a plane to Berlin.

Yuuri dragged himself shakily into the shower, with water so hot it felt almost like being boiled alive. Blood swirled in dark patterns against the tub until they turned lighter, pinker, and then weren't anything at all. His tickets were still strapped tight against his thigh, encased in clear plastic by the man who had saved Yuuri's life again and again and for the last time, and the weight of it hurt more than anything he'd ever felt before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Death, violence, guns, implied character death.
> 
> There's also some misuse of the Russian language (thanks Google). 
> 
> Maybe I should start setting up a schedule for these... I'm trying not to be more than a week in between, give or take a few days, but it'll probably motivate me to write if I do. Anyway, let me know thoughts on this. I know there's a lot going on so thanks for reading. (ﾉ´ з `)ノ


	3. Saudade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saudade
> 
> 1\. A feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia  
> 2\. A feeling of incompleteness due to the absence of someone or something, of a set of particular and desirable experiences and pleasures once lived

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at the end of chapter.

Years before, Yuuri lived in a house by the ocean.

The small onsen had been in his family for several generations, nestled in a quiet coastal town where most people were content to spend the rest of their lives without ever leaving. He had known since he was young that, one day, the care of it would fall to his and Mari’s shoulders. Yuuri had his own dreams, but even then, he didn’t mind—the onsen was a fixture in his mind, a safe haven he could return to, filled with all his best memories. He wasn’t alone in that, either. Yu-topia Katsuki was considered by locals to be the jewel of Hasetsu, and there was always laughter and warmth and the delicious smell of his mother’s cooking drifting through the halls.

It was also the last of its kind in town; all the rest had gone under over the long, hard years when tourists petered out to bigger and better cities, taking with them the much needed business many of his neighbors depended upon.

The onsen survived, but only by the skin of his family’s teeth, barely pulling in enough customers to scrape by at the end of each month. Guests came through the way tides did, in lurching ebbs and flows, and so money was always tight even in those weeks when the inn was full.

There were more lean seasons than not during his and Mari’s childhood. Their parents shielded them both from the worst of it, but neither could miss the way their mother and father traded off meals during the week, or the way they ate less and less as the lazy heat of summer rolled in and interest in the onsen waned, or the way they swore up and down that they couldn’t eat another bite even as their stomachs growled late in the night. Mari started doing the same the day after her thirteenth birthday, much to Hiroko and Toshiya’s dismay. But they couldn’t stop her from pushing the rest of her meal onto her brother’s plate, plastering a grin on her face through the hunger pangs as she told him to finish his food.

They stopped complaining soon enough, after Yuuri started putting on more weight. Every pound on his skinny frame was a triumph; the soft curve of his cheeks and the tuck of his little belly were victories for the whole family, and his happy smile at the end of each full meal gave them a reason to keep going even when things got hard.

Yuuri found his first love that same winter, in a pair of secondhand skates that he got for his seventh birthday. His parents had saved extra that year and wanted to surprise him, noticing the way he stared longingly after the Ice Castle each day. He cried for hours after he got them, throwing himself onto his mother’s lap, heart bursting and overwrought with love. He promised himself then that he would do whatever it took to pay them back for everything they had given him, for everything they had given up.

Yuuri liked to think that, in another life, he could have done that with his skating. He wanted to help everyone that needed helping in Hasetsu and so he threw himself into practice day after day, pushing his body and skills to the limit. He dreamed of being the best in Japan, of traveling to competitions all over the world and bringing back gold upon gold medal to his tiny oceanside home. Most of all, he wanted to watch his neighbors come alive again through his performances, and to see Mari and his parents cheering for him at the boards at the end of each skate. But of course, life didn’t work out that way.

He hadn’t made his parents proud, and he hadn’t saved Hasetsu, either.

 

* * *

 

The drive to headquarters was always long and silent, but it was worse this time. Buildings blurred through the tinted windows of the car, losing their shape as the night shifted into something deeper. He felt dread settle heavy around his shoulders, like so much earth being turned over his body, and Yuuri wished desperately to be anywhere but here. He hated coming back to this corner of the world; even the air felt wrong, grew too thick and stifling the closer he got to his destination. It felt like he was walking into a trap.

This was intentional, of course. The compound was difficult to find and even more difficult to get into, secreted away from prying eyes through a series of winding backroads leading into the very heart of one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Nada-ku. It was the type of place where the incredibly rich and powerful hid away their more sordid affairs—perhaps a second family, or a pregnant teenage daughter, or a drug-addicted relative—and paid a lot of money to do so. Even the police had turned a blind eye to the comings and goings of the residents here; if there was a scream or a shot or a black body bag, it was discreetly taken care of and never followed up on. And so the streets remained well kept but always empty, and each house stood alone and shuttered off, as if to ward away the sun itself.

The main headquarters was a loose association of these houses, scattered over a few square blocks where the most senior officers in the family lived and worked out of. They had fronts and businesses in other parts of Kobe and Kyushu, and now even in Tokyo where only the lowest ranking members were ever sent, but most preferred to stay in Nada-ku and controlled their territories from the relative safety of the ward. At the center of this cluster was the _kumicho_ ’s own home. It couldn’t be called anything other than the mansion it was—multi-storied and traditional, a little like the onsen Yuuri grew up in, but many times larger. It unfurled in elegant sweeps of carved wooden beams and shoji screens, with tiled roofs that sloped in tall, gentle curves against the sky. The grounds were encased by a set of high walls that were impossible to see over, but through them lay a lush riot of color from the beautiful gardens that were maintained year-round. 

Yuuri remembered the first time he saw the house, freshly plucked out of Hasetsu, and it seemed to him like something that could have been pulled straight from the pages of a history book or fairytale. His wonder might have eclipsed his fear then, if not for the eerie hush that rested over the whole grounds. In the decade and more since, that part hadn’t changed much. The house was lit up from the inside like a paper lantern, but it felt hollowed out and empty. In the back of his mind, he knew that there must have been people around—the family and their associates and their various servants—but they all moved in ghostly quiet so that the only sounds he could hear were the tap of his bare feet across tatami.

The _kumicho_ was already waiting for him in the banquet hall, seated atop a zabuton and with tea laid out on a low table in front of him. Dressed in his jinbei and wearing a placid expression on his elderly face, he looked deceptively harmless, as if he had been moments from bed when Yuuri showed up at his house to disturb his rest. 

That wasn’t likely—he summoned Yuuri the moment he stepped foot on Japanese soil, sending one of his cars to meet him at the airport as though he had been watching every step of his dog’s disgraceful journey back from Russia. 

Just the thought of it made him sick. The suffocating feeling he had during the whole drive over intensified into something tangible, like a leash tugging at his throat until he choked. The _kumicho_ beckoned him forward into the room and Yuuri could see now that they were not alone: two black-suited guards were at ready, standing stone-faced and severe as toy soldiers on either side of the boss. Both were armed. Yuuri vaguely wondered how fast he could get his gun, his knives, _anything_ out before he was shot dead, but the idea passed as quickly as it had come.

Yuuri fell to his knees as soon as the door slid shut behind him. He bowed deeply, back arched and arms held out, head dropped so that his forehead was laid flat against the floor.[1] His face and neck felt burning hot underneath the _kumicho_ ’s gaze, as if all the blood in his body was rising to the surface of his skin, ready to burst out of him just to spare anyone else the trouble. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he said. His voice was muffled against the tatami, lips pressed so hard against the mat that he could probably draw the pattern just from the memory of it moulded into his mouth. “ _Kumicho_ , please forgive me.” The man said nothing, letting his silence stretch on as Yuuri continued his mumbled apologies to the floor. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me." Sweat beaded down his temples and pooled in the small of his back, growing worse with each word that tumbled out of his lips. 

“I’m disappointed in you, Yuuri.” Even the way his name sounded in the _kumicho_ ’s mouth felt wrong, too sharp and clipped, bit out at the end as though it left a particularly bad taste as it came out. Maybe it did. Maybe he had finally outlived his usefulness. Yuuri failed missions before, more so when he was younger and more inexperienced, but not recently and never something at this scale. He got his handler killed, and possibly exposed himself to one of the most dangerous men in the criminal underworld. "I wasn't expecting to hear that Nikiforov and Feltsman were still alive."

If Viktor Nikiforov connected the dots, recognized the way he moved in the heat of a shootout—the Japanese tourist, the masked assassin, the man he almost killed, the man he _kissed_ —then he was dead already. If the Feltsman Bratva or the Sungiru Pa traced it back to Japan’s _Ace_ , to the family he worked for, then they _all_ were. The family would be crushed underfoot, not strong enough yet to fight either group alone. And if they had to do it at the same time? 

The idea itself was laughable. 

“Enough.”

Yuuri went still, mouth half open and voice stuck in his throat. The back of his neck felt hot, feverishly so, and even more vulnerable now that he wasn’t stumbling over his apologies. Someone moved to stand in front of him. From the corner of his eye, Yuuri saw a shiny leather shoe and the dark shadow of a man looming overhead. But he didn’t dare look up, wouldn’t have even if he could. His entire body was locked in that deep bow, all his nerves going dead, unable to move his muscles into action if he even bothered to try. 

It was the only reason he didn’t flinch when a knife clattered noisily to the floor next to his hand, followed by the flutter of a handkerchief. 

Tears suddenly burned in his eyes. He blinked them back, the knotted lump in his throat tightening until he could barely breathe through it. There was only one apology the _kumicho_ would accept.[2]

Yuuri shifted from his bow, forehead still pressed to the ground, to take up both items. His right hand wrapped solidly around the handle of the knife and his left laid out to rest on the white cloth.

He didn’t look, didn’t want to, couldn’t.

The blade was dull. Of course it was. He needed to push down with more weight to make the first cut. The edge of the knife was hard against his knuckle, and he thought it would break bone before it broke through his skin until the moment it finally did. His throat hitched as the hot slide of blood ran into the spaces left by his fingers, pooling there, thick and red—and _it hurt, it hurt so much_ —even though he had felt worse. 

The shame of doing this was the worst kind of humiliation. Everyone would _know_ after this exactly what he was: a dog, a disgrace.

Yuuri pressed into the knife, ready to make the final cut, when the _kumicho_ interrupted, once more saying, “Enough.” Yuuri went still again, his heart pounding loudly in his ears. “Oda, make the call.” The bodyguard standing over Yuuri shifted, fingers tapping against a phone screen out of sight, putting the conversation on speaker. One ring, then another. Someone picked up.

A woman was crying in the background. Someone else was shouting over the sobs. 

_“No! No, stop it! Please!”_

All the air went out of him. It was replaced with dread, and anger, and helplessness clawing into his chest once he realized who it belonged to.

His sister. 

_“Let him go! Don’t, you fucking bastards, let him go! Stop!”_

A scuffle, the sound of a body being dragged across tatami. His mother—he recognized the cries now—was sobbing even harder, her voice high and crackling through the phone. 

_“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck-“_

There was a crunch, like something heavy brought down against bone. 

His father was screaming now, too. He sounded like he was dying. 

_“Dad! Dad! You fucking bastards! I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking-“_

The phone call ended, but by then, Yuuri could barely hear a word. His mouth felt disgusting, tasting of the vomit he had to choke back in the middle of his father’s cries and his sister’s pleas and his mother’s sobs. His hand trembled around the knife. He wanted to take it back, his fear and shame just moments ago. He would gladly cut off his finger, his hand, all of his limbs if he could just rewind time, before that call. He wanted to kill _him_. He could do it too. They gave him the knife. It would only take a few seconds to jump up, straight past Oda the guard, and bring the sharp edge of the knife down on the _kumicho_ ’s neck and cut into him _again and again and again_ , at least once for every second of that call. 

But he didn’t. Yuuri was still as stone. Blood pooled steadily around his finger and he was ready to cut it off, if that’s what he was told to do.

“You may keep your finger, but don’t ever fail me again.”

The dismissal was clear enough.

He tumbled out of the room and into the hallway, barely able to walk through a wave of nausea. It felt as though the mats had been dragged out from beneath him, sending the world tilting underfoot, and he tried not to empty his stomach out through the vertigo of it. Muscle memory, more than any conscious thought, guided him deeper into the folds of the house until he ended up back in the familiar wing where his room was located. The call played on loop in his ears—he would hear his family forever like that in his head—screaming, terrified, paying the price for his mistakes. 

A lot of people were, lately. 

Yuuri was two steps from the door when he was called back, a gleefully shouted, “ _Aniki!_ ” resounding from somewhere behind him. He turned stiffly, spotting the bright shock of Minami’s hair speeding towards him, seconds before the boy practically bowled him over in his enthusiasm. “I heard you were back! Some of the maids saw you pull in, but I figured you were meeting with _otou-sama_ so I didn’t want to interrupt. You were gone for so long this time! It was on a job, right, _aniki_? Please, please tell me all about it!” The smile on the blonde’s face was blinding, his grin stretched wide with unabashed and unspoiled happiness, but Yuuri could only see another in his place: blonder and paler, blood draining out of his side and into the backseat of a car and a cheap hotel bed. They were probably around the same age.

The bile rose up in his throat again.

“ _Bocchan_ ,” he said thickly, voice sounding strange to his own ears without the apology laced into it. “You shouldn't, please don’t call me that. I’m not your _aniki_. I’m not even part of the family.” The smile he returned was wobbly but he hoped Minami didn’t notice. It wasn’t his fault. Minami was only a child, despite what he had been born into; his upbringing was softer than Yuuri’s. “What would your father say if he heard you-“

Minami let out a dissatisfied noise and blew a streak of red hair out of his face. “It’s not fair, though. You’re so much better than any of the guys we’ve just brought in. You’re our _Ace_ , the best we have! _Otou-sama_ should have offered you _oyako-sakazuki_ [3] a long time ago.” The teen looked put out for a moment, then brightened again as a thought passed through his head. “Do you want me to ask for you? I bet you’d look so cool in a kimono, and a haori too! Like a prince!”

“Please, no!” Yuuri interrupted. The smile on his face strained even further. “You don’t need to do anything like that for someone like me, _bocchan_.”

Minami pouted again, but relented after another moment. His eyes went big and watery as he stared up at the older man in admiration. "But even if it's not official, you'll always be my _senpai_!" He declared, reaching out to grasp at Yuuri's hands, which had fallen to the sides, only to flinch back when he felt the blood still dripping there from the open wound. "You're _bleeding_ ," he said, horrified, as if it were the worst thing to happen to Yuuri that entire, terrible night. "You need to see the doctor! What if it gets infected? What if-"

“Enough.” Yuuri winced even as he said it. The word tasted like ash coming out of his mouth. “I’m fine, _bocchan_. I’m alright.” He tried to soften his tone, to remember that— _Minami didn’t know, had no clue, this wasn’t his fault, it’s his father’s, it’s_ ** _yours_** —but that was easier said than done. “It’s only a cut, I promise. I was just careless and clumsy.” Tiredness gripped him, just then, achingly. His entire body felt leaden, nearly dragging him to the floor with the sudden weight of it. All he wanted to do was sleep, and, hopefully, forget. “I’ve had a long day. We can talk later, okay?” The expression on his face must have been truly pitiful because Minami let him go as if burned and Yuuri took his chance, turning to walk into the darkness of his room.

He fell through the door, onto his hands and knees, the last dregs of his control slipping away with the first heave of his stomach. Again and again, his entire body emptied itself out onto the floor. He didn’t let himself stop until it felt as hollowed out as his heart.

 

* * *

 

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

 

The sound of it was almost soothing, a slow and steady pulse that broke through the oppressive silence of the night. This was the largest private room that money could buy, in the best hospital in Sochi, and yet it still somehow felt claustrophobic, as if the bare walls and sterile air were pressing in on all sides around him. Viktor hated hospitals with a passion. He hated the harsh fluorescent lights and cheap mattresses they provided, hated the frantic energy of the staff and the worrying families waiting in the halls, hated the way sickness clung onto him like a film even hours after he left. If Viktor had his way, Yuri would already be home by now; the teenager would probably recover faster in the comfort of his own bed, being looked after by the trusted family doctor and ensconced in the safety of their St. Petersburg mansion. 

But there was nothing to be done about it now. Yuri had already been admitted to the hospital, being treated for gunshot wounds and extensive (though thankfully not critical) blood loss, by the time Viktor finally managed to track him down. According to the police report, Yuri was found half-dead in a cheap hotel room not thirty minutes after the club shootout. His blood was all over the backseat of a car abandoned in the parking lot, which had fake plates and all its serial numbers filed off to render it untraceable. Someone had obviously brought him there, had cared enough to bandage up his wounds and call for help before disappearing, but no one could put a face to the previous occupant of the room and the name he gave was likely a fake. There were no cameras either, and the staff had largely left the man alone, forgetting what he looked like after checking in on his first day and giving only the vague description of "some kind of Asian" when asked for more detail.

Even Yuri, in his more lucid moments, could only recall the faint impression of dark eyes and darker hair before the memory flitted away from him—hardly a lead when it applied to more than half the world.

Viktor rarely felt guilty about the things he did, couldn't afford to if he wanted to continue running the family's businesses effectively. People got hurt, yes, and he had done more than his fair share of inflicting it directly in the years since Yakov took him in. But there was no other word for the pit in his stomach, a sinkhole tugging in every bad thought to the center of himself, as if to swallow him from the inside-out.

Yuri looked so small, lying supine on the bed, medical equipment crowded around him like old friends. It was hard not to think of the boy as Viktor first saw him: clinging tight to Nikolai Plisetsky's leg, a fierce expression on his face that he never quite grew out of. It had taken all of Kolya's pride to beg his brother-in-law for help, unprepared as he was to take in a grandchild when his own son died. He had been living in a dingy Moscow flat, on an income barely enough for one, when the five-year-old had been dropped into his lap, and it had taken him nearly six months to admit that he needed more to support the growing boy. Yakov had relented almost immediately, going soft around the edges once he saw Yuri for the first time, the spitting image of a sister whose life he had largely missed due to the family business.

Viktor, at eighteen, had been just as taken with the small boy. Yuri looked at him like he hung the moon, impressed with the stories Viktor came home with at the end of a successful job. It wasn’t long before Viktor was letting him nose in on meetings and briefings, and even training him with a rifle or two—the child was quite obviously gifted with them and his interest in the Bratva was encouraged by everyone save his own grandfather.

Now, Viktor was beginning to see Kolya’s point.

A meeting between allies was one thing, but a shootout was no place for someone as green as Yuri, no matter his promise with a gun. Viktor had been so confident in the smooth course of the treaty that he hadn’t considered an attack possible when he _should have_. That was his own failing, he could admit, and it had almost gotten them all killed. He should have drawn out his gun and taken out as many of the enemy as he could the second they heard the first shots through the door. Instead he sat there, stunned, until one of the kkangpae let the rest of their traitorous bunch into the room and everything erupted into chaos.

In his haste to find adequate cover for both Yakov and Yuri, he had only seen the Lee boss go down from the corner of his eye before there were suddenly too many men to pinpoint where the bullet had come from. And even then, Viktor couldn’t find it in himself to care. He focused only on one thing— _get Yuri out, get him_ ** _out_** —and neither he nor Yakov stopped shooting until the boy had a clear path to run out of the room and hide. 

At first they felt relief when Yuri did not turn up amongst the bodies being hauled out of the club that night. But when morning came and one day turned into two, they all feared the worst. If Yuri had been captured by the kkangpae, he was as good as dead. Though he was only a boy, he was one privy to the deepest secrets of the Bratva, and the shootout revealed how little they could trust the Sungiru Pa with any code of honor. 

By some miracle, one of their contacts in the _politsiya_ had been called out to the hotel where Yuri was found and let them know that there was an unidentified blonde teenager being treated in the hospital for gunshot wounds. Yakov made arrangements, Kolya was summoned from St. Petersburg, and Viktor was left to watch Yuri’s recovery like a hawk until he got there.

It could have been worse, Yakov said. But Viktor knew that if he had been better, it wouldn’t have happened at all.

The sound of the door opening shook him out of his stupor. Yakov walked into the room scowling, tossing a paper bag into his lap without a glance, before checking on the still sleeping Yuri. “Eat,” the older man barked out, though there was no real bite in his voice, “I don’t need you ending up in here too.” Neither of them said anything after that, letting the mechanical beeps of the heart monitor take up the silence between them instead. Then, after several long moments, Yakov turned to him at last. He looked older; the lines of his face ran deeper with his worry, as if the last two days had aged him the span of two years. “Kolya will be here in two hours. He is not pleased.”

Viktor nodded. “I don’t blame him. Yura should not have been there in the first place.”

The comment wasn't directed at Yakov, but he flinched anyway. After all, he shouldered part of the blame for letting Yuri come to that disastrous meeting, untried and unprepared for the reality of life-or-death. He had been too indulgent. In his eagerness to bring one of his own blood into the Bratva, he let himself get careless and that was the worst mistake he could have made in this business. "What will you do now, Vitya?"

Viktor leaned back in his seat, eyes narrowed in a glare so sharp it could have cut through steel. _This is my heir_ , Yakov thought with the sudden, fierce ache of pride, _this is why he will succeed me_. 

"I'm going to destroy them."

 

* * *

 

Even the ocean was quiet, sucking in the stirrings of the night into its black depths, seeming more like a still frame from a movie than real life. He drove with the windows down, too fast along the backroads, letting the cool air slide sharp and stinging around his face and through his hair. The knot in his chest loosened as the distance between him and the compound increased, allowing him to breathe again for the first time in days.

It had already taken him three to make the trip back to Hasetsu, two of which were spent simply mustering up the courage to go. The _kumicho_ didn't particularly care what Yuuri did when he wasn't on the job—in fact, he might have encouraged the visit if he knew about it, a visceral reminder of what Yuuri stood to lose should he fail again. 

As it was, Yuuri didn't plan on staying past the night. He just wanted to see that his family was alright. He needed the reassurance that they were still there, moving and breathing and _living_ people, more than just the hazy memories he kept tucked in the corner of his heart. There was no way he could face them, after what he'd done; it would break him if he saw hatred in their eyes, more than anything the _kumicho_ could ever do.

When Yuuri was younger, in the aftermath of his first real hit, he had entertained the thought of leaving. He wondered what it would take to spirit the four of them away, like smoke from underneath the _kumicho_ 's thumb. It would take money, and skill, and time to plan it all out—and those he all lacked in staggering amounts. But he did so anyway, and extensively. He began sketching out notes upon notes, rough at first and then more elaborate as he began to understand the world he now moved through. He listed down names, events, the best routes to go from this place and that. He had notebooks filled to the brim with these thoughts, hidden in the little nook he carved out from beneath the floorboards of his room, where he also kept the dossier he'd been building since he was twelve. Where would they go? What favors could he pull? Who would he have to kill? 

It was an obsession that ate him up during those late nights, when all he could do was stare up at his ceiling, tracing over each step of the many plans whirling around in his head. Until, one day, he realized that there was no real _leaving_ in any of those futures. Only a lifetime of running and the hunger of always missing home. 

Even now, he felt it, in the long dark years since he left Hasetsu. His parents would never leave the onsen and Mari would never leave them—and no matter what he did, Yuuri could never leave behind the world that took him from that life and gave him this new one steeped in blood. There were too many roots, dug deep into the cracks of their hearts, to ever truly let go.

It was past midnight by the time he pulled into the hospital. Visiting hours were long over, but none of the staff questioned him when he asked for his father's room and walked straight past them, into the half-lit halls of the recovery ward. They needed only to see his slicked back hair and sharp suit before the word _Yakuza_ passed through their heads, which they wisely turned the other way. 

Toshiya Katsuki had never been a big man, but he seemed to have shrunk since the last time Yuuri saw him. He was thinner, without much of the rounded curve his belly used to boast, and the grayish tint of his skin was not entirely due to the dark. It was hard to see him like that, the spark of him so effectively snuffed out; he was always smiling in Yuuri's memories, ready with a quick joke or smile, his warm hands reaching out to take Yuuri's coat whenever he came in from the cold. Now they rested on top of the covers, the left folded gently over the cast on the right, and the sight of it made Yuuri want to cry. Whoever the _kumicho_ had sent had truly done their job—all the bones of Toshiya's hand were broken in, bent into the curving shape of ginger root even through their blue-black swell. It was likely that he would never use that hand again, or at the very least, not in the same way.

"You only make that face when you're about to cry," Mari said from behind him. Yuuri had heard her come in, of course; there was no hiding the echo of her footsteps from outside the door nor the faint aftertaste of cigarettes that followed in her wake. But he didn't want to see her just then, hadn't planned on seeing anyone save the receptionist downstairs before he made his miserable drive back to Nada-ku. He found that he wasn't prepared for it at all. Without the filter of a cellphone, Mari's voice seemed too close, bearing down on him in the small room and threaded with a tiredness that seemed bone-deep.

"How did yo-," he started to ask, but was cut off by a wave of Mari's hand. 

“Not in here. Dad needs to rest.” Nodding, he followed her out of the room and back to the front of the building. She shook a cigarette from its carton and lit it, offering the box to him silently. They stood there in the cold, smoking, and Mari had at least two more before she spoke again. “I figured you would come by soon.”

“How is he?” Yuuri asked, instead of responding to his sister’s thinly veiled barbs. “What did the doctors say?”

“It’ll be a miracle if they don’t cut it off,” Mari said bitterly. She looked at him from the corner of her eye, at his hair and his clothes and the neutral expression he wore on his face. “You’ve changed a lot, Yuuri. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten all about us?”

The cigarette crumpled in his hand. He dropped it, crushing the burning ember underneath his heel, hands fisted into tight balls at his side. Heat crept down from his cheeks to the back of his neck, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, focusing instead on the long cracks running down the sidewalk. “That’s not fair, Mari,” he said. His voice broke right at the center of it and he forced himself to swallow. “I don’t have a choice.”

“You’re back, aren’t you? You could have come back if you wanted to.” Her words twisted something deep in his gut. “Five years, Yuuri. We haven’t seen you in five years. _Fuck_ , we didn’t even know you were still alive until they told us three days ago!” He looked into her scowling face, wanting to wither into himself as she glared. Her lip trembled in its tight line and she held onto that hardness for another heartbeat before she softened, reaching out to curl him into the curve of her neck. Yuuri let her, breathing in the familiar scent of sea salt and smoke. “Mom misses you.”

“I know.” Her arms came around him, holding him tight.

“Are you gonna come see her?”

He shook his head. “I can’t,” he mumbled into her embrace. When he finally pulled away, they both pretended not to see the tears caught in the soft collar of her shirt. “I can’t.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Violence, torture, blackmail, mutilation.
> 
> [1][Dogeza ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogeza)(土下座 "sitting right on the ground") is an element of Japanese manners by kneeling directly on the ground and bowing to prostrate oneself as touching one's head to the floor. It is used to show deference to the most highly revered high-class person, as a deep apology and to express the desire for a favor from said person.  
>    
> 2[Yubitsume ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubitsume)(指詰め, "finger shortening") is a Japanese ritual to atone for offenses to another, a way to be punished or to show sincere apology to another, by means of amputating portions of one's own little finger. It is almost exclusively performed by the yakuza.
> 
> 3Ceremonial tradition involving the ritual passing of sake to signify a new relationship between two individuals or an individual and a gang.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you so much for your support thus far! I get so excited when I get comments on this, it makes me wanna work harder to give you guys a good story because you're all so nice to me. Hope you enjoyed this chapter (lmao as much as you can enjoy it with all that happened). One day I will figure out how to link footnotes but it is not this day. Also—should I start posting these weekly???? I will if there is enough interest in it! :)


	4. Lítost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lítost
> 
> 1\. Regret, remorse, repentance (for doing wrong)  
> 2\. A state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at the end of chapter.

“Come on,” Mari said, tugging him away from their father’s bedside. Yuuri was fixated on that sleeping face, drawn into a tight expression of pain even as the older man dreamt. The frown there pressed fine wrinkles into the corners of his eyes and around his mouth, and the sight of it clawed hotly into Yuuri’s chest the longer he looked—like some great, wild beast pacing the floor of its cage. His father, who never had a bad word for anyone and always did his best to be kind; his father, who worked hard and honestly for all that they had; his father, who was an innocent in all this. His anger, since faded into a dull roar as the miles stretched between his two lives, surged with renewed force. He had to hold himself completely still for some long minutes as his heart pounded painfully against his ribs. “ _Yuuri_ , come on,” Mari said again. She was more insistent as she pulled now, her hand a vice around his arm, leading him out of the building and into the cold winter night. “I need a drink.”

They got into his car and drove silently. It was just past one when they pulled up next to a familiar bar, warm light spilling through the noren in a pillar running across the sidewalk. The place was deserted save for the lone figure cleaning up behind the counter. 

Minako hadn’t changed much in the five years since Yuuri saw her last. She looked preternaturally young, having lost none of the slim and graceful lines that ballet gave her nor the eagle-eyed sharpness of her gaze. Even the smooth tenor of her voice was the same, carrying through the air as she spoke. “We’re closed,” she said flatly, not bothering to look up from the snifter in her hands as they walked in.

“Minako-sensei,” he breathed out, his tense muscles unspooling. A warmth spread through him just hearing her. Memories of their long talks in the ballet studio or at the skating rink unfurled through him like a bolt of cloth, made him want to open up his arms and reach for her. She understood him best, once. They shared the same passions, and also the same contradictions. They both wanted to make their way into the wider world, yet longed to curl back into the familiar motions of Hasetsu. Minako had lived the life he dreamed of, had made her own name, and had come back home whole and happy.

In an instant, the glass fell from her hands and shattered. Her head shot up in surprise, the air visibly catching in her throat at the sight of him framed against the doorway. “Yuuri,” she said, voice quieter, but full and wet with tears. She tumbled out from behind the bar and ran, arms outstretched, to wrap him up in her embrace as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. Maybe she still did. “ _Yuuri_.” She held him for another moment and then pulled back, taking in the whole of him with wonder. “We thought you were dead.”

“Still here,” he said with a small smile.

“But for how long this time?” She asked. Mari scoffed bitterly from somewhere behind him as he shrugged, heading over to the bar to sweep up the broken glass and pour herself a stiff drink. “A day? A week? When are you coming home?”

“Just for the night.”

At that, her face crumpled. Yuuri felt a stab of guilt pass through him but he knew he had to leave—people would begin to recognize him if he stayed too long, and he didn’t want the shame of being associated with the Yakuza to fall on his family. They had gone through enough already. He followed Minako to the bar and smiled gratefully when she slid the ochoko towards him, pouring a generous dose of sake into his cup before attending to her own.

Mari held out her own, unsmiling. “Kanpai,” she said.

“Kanpai.” They all drank. 

Later that night, he ended up sprawled on the floor of Minako’s flat, located just above the small bar. The older woman had retired to her own bed and Mari was on the couch right next to him, her occasional snores punctuating the quiet of the room. Yuuri watched her for as long as he could, memorizing the blurred smudge she made in the dark, the tang of smoke and sake woven through her clothes and hair. Her arm dropped off the edge of the couch and he reached out for it, the warm weight of her hand anchoring him to wakefulness. 

“Yuuri,” she said suddenly, awake after all, gripping his hand tight. He started at the touch but held fast, their fingers threading together, palm to palm.

When they were younger, he used to trail after Mari as she worked at the onsen. His small hand would latch itself onto the back of her robes when he eventually grew out of being carried on her hip, his small feet struggling to keep up with her longer strides. Sometimes, whenever he fell too far behind, she would hold out her hand to tug him along until he was tripping into her pace at practically a run. This moment somehow brought back those memories, of Mari drifting far ahead of him as he desperately tried to cleave himself to her side. 

“Yuuri,” she repeated, just when he thought she had fallen asleep again. “You know we’re not mad at you, right? We miss you so much.” Everything inside of him ached, hearing that. He wanted so badly to tell her the same—that he thought about them every night before he went to sleep, that he could barely breathe without the sea salt air of Hasetsu. But he didn’t. He stayed quiet instead, frozen as her hand squeezed his desperately in the dark. “We want you to come home." 

 _Me too, me too_.  

“It’s my fault. I’m so sorry, Yuuri.” Mari hiccuped, sobbing now. He tugged his hand free and she followed the motion to the floor, where she curled up against his side in a tight ball. She clutched at his arm, shaking, her tears soaking the expensive material of his suit. He stroked her hair like she used to do for him, suddenly at a loss. He had only ever seen her cry once before; Mari was the strong one, not him. “I’m sorry. It should have been me.”  

Mari kept babbling into his ear, so he let his eyes fall shut, the lazy heat of alcohol lulling him into a fitful sleep. He ignored the ugly thought inside of him that whispered _she’s right_.  

He left in the morning, just before dawn, hauling Mari back onto the couch and running the cold tap over his head to shock himself into wakefulness. The drive back to Nada-ku was long but he didn’t stop once. He kept the windows down, the cool air blowing away the last traces of home from inside of him. 

 

Yuuri didn't have much time to rest before he was sent back out to Tokyo—both a punishment and a blessing, in his case. The capital was disputed territory and only the most disposable of their men were ever sent there, usually on missions that required the reckless and suicidal touch of the new. Recruits were always so eager to go, trying to prove themselves to the boss by staking out new territory for his family. Most of them never made it back home; if they did, it was usually in body bags.  

Yuuri hadn’t been to Tokyo on official business in years, but the idea of spending even another day inside the compound was worse and filled him with a sense of dread so acute it stretched his nerves thin. He didn’t want to face the _kumicho_ again so soon, with the lurid image of his father’s wrecked hand tattooed into his every waking moment. The cut on his finger throbbed the entire ride back to Nada-ku, as if to remind him of what that man did

But the _kumicho_ didn’t bother with him when he got back. Instead, he sent out one of his advisors to brief Yuuri on the details of his next assignment and dismissed him without so much as a passing glance. Thankfulness and rage churned low in his gut; the clumsy feeling of wanting to be acknowledged warred with the more sensible one that told him to _run, run far away, never stop running_. He couldn’t, of course, so he was left to pack his bags and prepare for his trip to Tokyo.  

Minami begged to come along. His big, brown eyes went slightly starry at the thought of being on his first real assignment at only seventeen. “That’s already two years later than when you did,” he whined when Yuuri told him he still had time to make his name, “I have so much to catch up on if I’m going to be as great as you one day.” Yuuri said nothing else as he sorted through his suits, but felt immensely gratified when the boy was given a resounding, “No,” by his tutors. Even so, Minami pouted up until the moment Yuuri left, clinging to his arm all the way to the car, half ready to jump into the backseat, his tutors be damned.  

Yuuri smiled at the childish reaction before his own expression sobered. Young though he was, Minami Kenjirou was still the _kumicho_ ’s son—a snake in the making no matter how innocent he seemed now. He would one day inherit his father’s seat and Yuuri wouldn’t, couldn’t help him there. 

_Besides_ , the tutors had said, _the Oyabun’s son should not be doing grunt work_.

That was true enough; Yuuri himself hadn’t been on a job like this since he first started out. It was a standard intimidation racket against one of the family’s more lucrative business partners. The small import-export company was one of the few Tokyo-based ventures the _kumicho_ managed to secure against the larger syndicates running the capital, and it was a major component of the family’s international dealings: namely, smuggling drugs from right under the nose of law enforcement. The tidy operation ferried their merchandise primarily along trade routes in Asia, exchanging drugs for things like money and guns and women that eventually found their way into the hands of the wealthy clientele who frequented Japan’s underground and red-light districts.

All things considered, it was simple work. The Japanese embraced a particular sensibility about extortion that meant Yuuri, more often than not, only needed to show up at board meetings in a flashy suit and with an appropriately intimidating expression in order to get his way.[1] It was even easier once he grew into his body—though not the tallest or most muscular of men, Yuuri had lost much of the youthful softness he still clung to at fifteen that turned men's eyes hungry and smiles syrupy sweet when they caught sight of him. At least until they figured out exactly whose dog he was; then they nervously gave into the _kumicho_ 's demands, fearing a scandal that could tear down their carefully built lives. After all, the public might be able to forgive a mistress or even an overdose in powerful men, but not so quickly a proclivity for young boys and girls.

They never touched him, never got the chance to before Yuuri made it clear that his visit was strictly business. He always considered himself lucky for that one grace, but the fear ate him up much in the same way those hungry eyes did. He knew even then how fragile his place in the world was, how easily he could have fallen into one of the clubs or brothels owned by the family, his debt paid not just with his soul but with his body, too. He’d been to some of them for work, knew exactly the kinds of things the men and women there were asked to do for the sake of their clients. The shame of it all would have killed him, even faster than it was now.

_It could always be worse,_ he told himself, _you don’t have your freedom but you still have this._

But even that was no guarantee. Though he was no longer the same young boy, Yuuri knew that nothing in this life truly belonged to him. Everything he was served strictly in the best interests of the family and the _kumicho_ himself. If they asked him to jump then he’d jump, if they asked him to die then he’d die. His leash might have been long, but they could still drag him kicking and screaming into submission if they were inclined.

His family was proof enough of that.

So he had to succeed this time. Another failure meant inflicting more pain on the only good thing in his life—the people he cared about and tried hard to keep at a distance, if only to avoid staining them with hands that would never again wash clean. Already, the trip back was a selfish impulse he should not have indulged. He could only hope Mari and Minako would keep it to themselves, how much of a coward and disappointment he truly was.

According to the briefing Yuuri received that morning, the import-export company planned to pull a significant portion of the family’s merchandise from its distribution route—and with it, the seed money the _kumicho_ had been using to gain a stronger foothold for his other businesses in Tokyo. The white collar shareholders running the board never before opposed dealings with the Yakuza as it put more money in everyone’s pockets that could neither be traced nor taxed, so it had come as a surprise when the chief executive himself had called off the company’s contract with the Minami-kai.

Yuuri had never met the man personally, but he knew the type well: powerful, arrogant, and intelligent. Jean-Jacques Leroy was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and was cunning enough to keep it there; he might have been a foreigner, but he would never have gone back on a deal with the Yakuza unless he thought himself beyond reproach. Though it had yet to be confirmed, Yuuri suspected that Leroy was now under the thumb of one of the larger syndicates running the capital and likely thought the Minami-kai posed no threat to the security of his company. Yuuri, of course, was there to prove him wrong.

The suit he wore that night was a dark blue affair all over. Custom fitted and ludicrously expensive, it was made from a swathe of rich velvet whose price tag could have comfortably fed a family of four, even without the addition of its golden embellishments or the gleaming cufflinks at his wrists. Combined with his sleek hair and the smug expression on his face, his reflection looked glossy and unreal through the car window—touched-up as if he just emerged from the pages of a magazine. Looking like this, he could see what Mari meant when she said he’d changed. He hardly recognized himself without the comfort of his loose clothes and looser hair, the heavy bulk of his glasses shielding his eyes from the full view of the world. 

But this was armor, too, in a battle endlessly more complicated than ones fought with guns and knives. Those he understood, at least. It was the selfishness of men who already held the world in the palms of their hands that confused him.

The limousine dropped him off in front of the corporate building, which was a tall pillar of glass and steel set against the darkening sky. Its polished surface shone in a parade of neon lights, reflecting back the frenetic energy thrumming through Tokyo at night. Yuuri stepped out of the car and nodded to his driver, watching for a moment as the low black stretch of it pulled away before he headed inside.

The lobby hadn’t emptied out yet, despite the workday having ended hours ago. Some salarymen still lingered around the floor, curiously eyeing the figure he cut entering the building, though they very politely averted their gazes when he passed. Their thoughts were almost tangible in the way they stared, their bitter jealousies wrapped up in whatever judgements they already made about him. No one questioned Yuuri as he made his way towards the elevators, nor when he pressed the button taking him straight to the executive suites on the highest floor; they simply assumed he belonged there, and he did nothing to correct it. In fact, no one stopped him until he was standing just outside the boardroom. Two guards were posted on either side of the mahogany doors in the antechamber, looking bored and stiff in their crisp uniforms. They must have been there for a while now. If Yuuri had timed it correctly, then the shareholder meeting just lapsed into its first hour—enough time for the board of directors to get comfortable, before he interrupted what was likely a celebratory mood.

“Hey, you there!” One of the guards jolted when they finally noticed him, surprise fading into hesitation when Yuuri came into full view. They eyed his suit and hair and the glinting watch made of heavy gold that he wore on his left wrist. “Sir,” the guard began, more respectfully this time, “this is a private meeting. I’m afraid you have to turn back.” The other one made a move as if to escort him out. 

Yuuri smirked, looking down his nose at the two men, though both were taller than him. He stepped closer to the door and rearranged his body into a confident pose, keeping his voice cool and dangerous as he spoke. “Actually, I have an open invitation.”

The guards looked at each other, unsure, before the first one cleared his throat. His partner looked cowed, standing silent and pale and off to the side. “I, I’m very sorry, sir,” the guard stuttered out, making a helpless gesture between the two of them, “I wasn’t, _we_ weren’t informed of anyone coming late.”

Yuuri leaned back, weight on his heels, thumbs slipping into his pockets. The motion knocked aside the lines of his suit to reveal the soft leather holsters strapped to his belt. Both guards started and reached for their own weapons, but they were half a second too late. They stilled, watching in rapt fascination as Yuuri readjusted his grip and ran his fingers over the handles of his guns. The caress was slow, a whispered greeting to an old friend, and Yuuri could practically see the shiver run up both men’s spines.

“It was above your pay grade,” he told them kindly, then motioned with his head towards the elevators. “Your services won’t be needed for the rest of the night.”

“But-“ The silent one was evidently smarter than his partner because he stopped the sentence before it could fully form, recognition flashing through his eyes. They both shuffled towards the exit without a glance back, leaving Yuuri standing alone in the antechamber. Steeling himself, he set his hand on the doorknob and pushed in, the thick wood swinging open under its own weight.

Several startled yelps rose up when he swept into the room. Heads turned so quickly to face him that an almost audible whiplash ran through the group. Each step Yuuri took was purposeful, the center of gravity shifting inside the spacious area until everyone’s attention was drawn solely to him, standing on the opposite end of a long table from the chief executive himself. 

Like a weed in a field of grass, the foreigner certainly stuck out amongst the crowd of older Japanese men. Jean-Jacques Leroy was young and handsome, and looked entirely out of place in the sober atmosphere of the conference room. With his fashionable haircut and crisp red suit, he would have been more at home in a casino or strip club than a meeting between top executives.  

He blinked blue-grey eyes at Yuuri, mouth ajar and hands stalled in the middle of an aborted gesture. “Who are you?” He asked, his initial surprise melting into indignation. “Who let you in here?”

Ignoring the first question, Yuuri leaned over until his palms were flat against the tabletop. He steadied himself there, fairly looming over the still seated shareholders as he tried to keep his smirk in tact and voice casual. “Your guards. I sent them home, by the way. They were smart enough to realize who they were dealing with.” Yuuri’s English must have caught Leroy off guard because it took a few moments for his words to register.

“And who is that, exactly?” Leroy demanded again. Yuuri saw a few of the older and more knowledgeable businessmen jerk their heads from side-to-side at their CEO, who must have either ignored or missed the subtle movement. If it wasn’t evident before that Yuuri was dealing with an amateur, then it was now. There was no room for argument in Leroy’s tone—it rang out brash and loud, with a question that commanded an answer. Apparently, he didn’t know that there was a steep price for that type of disrespect in the circles Yuuri ran in.

“Even if I told you,” he drawled out, easing into a character now that he knew what type of man Leroy was, “my name wouldn’t mean that much to you. But you might recognize my boss. After all, your company and Minami-sama have done quite a lot of business together these last few years. Isn’t that right, Mr. Leroy?” Said man paled, the color going out of his tanned skin, though not nearly as quickly as it did the rest of his board of directors. A hush descended over the group, so deep that the sound of a pin dropping would have echoed in the room. “They call me his _Ace_.” 

The thing with men like Jean-Jacques Leroy was that they were born with the innate belief that their place in the world was at the top, the kind of people who never fought or got their hands dirty for anything, though they were happy enough to let others do so for their sake. But Yuuri knew just as well how fragile a belief like that was, and watched it crumple even as he spoke, when confronted with someone who knew nothing but the ugliness of the world.

Yuuri observed in fascination as the foreigner stuttered, all composure and bravado suddenly lost. He felt a small pang of sympathy for the man—younger than him, according to the files, and probably trying to impress his business guru father by making something of an inconsequential import-export company back East—but didn’t linger on the thought for long. 

“You’re familiar with the family, then?” He asked instead, not expecting a reply. He tipped back a chair to seat himself across from the speechless man, resting his arms atop the table and pressing his hands together against his lips. “Good, that saves us time. The rest of you can leave. Mr. Leroy and I have private business to discuss.” The shareholders wasted no time scrambling out of the room, throwing their younger leader to the dogs, as it were. The pang of sympathy Yuuri felt earlier came back in full force; the last thing this barely-adult CEO had expected was probably a visit from Japan’s top enforcer. “Sit down, please.”

Leroy did, shoulders tight and back ramrod straight. Yuuri reclined further into his seat, waiting patiently for the other man to say something. The silence swelled to an uncomfortable degree between them until, finally, Leroy cracked. The last dregs of his composure fizzled away as he grimaced, and Yuuri could practically see the way his fists clenched up underneath the table, all the muscles in his arms and neck popping up like great roots. “I-“ he began, voice pinched.

Yuuri cut him off. “ _You_ have caused a lot of problems for Minami-sama ever since you took over, Mr. Leroy. He enjoyed your father’s hands-off approach for ten years, but now he hears that you’re planning to pull out of your contract with the family?” He hissed, leaning forward, and Leroy withered in response. The foreigner looked so much smaller scrunched up into his seat that he seemed exactly his age then, just another cocky twenty-year-old upstart. “I think you’re smart enough to know why that’s a bad idea.”

“What do you want me to do?” Leroy asked, deflated. “We have, there’s another supplier for our routes in Shanghai and Seoul. The market is flooded there—we can’t possibly afford to keep your shipment, too. We would go bankrupt.”

“You should have thought of that before aligning yourself with another gang,” Yuuri said reproachfully. It was almost like he was scolding a child. “We’re taking over your current supply. The _kumicho_ now requires a seventy percent cut, because he’s feeling generous. You’re lucky we’re not taking all of it.  

All the blood drained out of Leroy’s face. He went boneless, pitching forward into the table, head in his hands as he moaned pitifully. “They’ll kill me,” he muttered, the sound muffled by his palms. “They’ll kill me.”

“And who are they?”

Leroy moaned again. He was crying now. “Viktor. Viktor Nikiforov.”

 

* * *

 

“Lee _sajang-nim_ ,” someone called out from behind him.[2] Seung-gil turned towards the voice. He felt stiff and hot in his suit, sweat trapped underneath the thick layers of cloth, but his impassive face didn’t change. His mother and sister wept beside him in wet, heartbreaking sobs. The rest of the _Geondal_  stood apart from them, heads bowed deeply in respect.[3] “I’m sorry for your loss.” 

The air was heavy, humid with the rain. It was the perfect weather for a funeral.

Seung-gil watched from the corner of his eye as earth was turned over his grandfather’s body. They received the remains just three days ago, sent in on a cargo ship under the cover of darkness. It was difficult to sneak a body across borders, but Seung-gil wasn’t willing to leave his grandfather’s remains in the hands of the Russians to be disrespected even further. Even thinking about it made his blood run hot, anger simmering in a tightly coiled knot at the center of his stomach.

He prepared the body himself: washed it in incense and oils, dressed it, wrapped it up in a shroud of fine white silk.

“Thank you, Ji _Lóngtóu_.” [4] Seung-gil gave a brief bow. The older Chinese man nodded at him approvingly, clapping a hand over his shoulder when he rose from it. Behind him stood a light-haired boy—the grandson, probably—and a distinctly out of place American man. “I’m glad you could make it to grandfather’s funeral.”

“He would have been proud of you, Seung-gil. You’re young, but there’s no question about your ability to lead the group.” They both turned back and watched as an attendant packed the dirt in, the final shovelful landing right at the center of the grave. “Your grandfather and I were close, and our families have a strong alliance. We will honor that. If you need anything, Seung-gil, then we will provide.” 

Seung-gil nodded. He hid his fist in the pocket of his suit, clenched tightly around the bullet he kept there—the one he pulled from the wound in his grandfather’s chest. “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

Yuuri walked in a daze out of the building, his driver already waiting for him there with the car. Leroy’s words hadn’t fully sunk in yet—he understood each individual part perfectly well, but the meaning wouldn’t come together in his head. He could neither grasp it wholly nor let it go, so it just lingered in a hazy fog through his consciousness. But who could blame him? 

Viktor Nikiforov was in Japan.

His stomach roiled unpleasantly as the thought solidified, finally catching shape and landing like a ton of bricks dropped on top of him. The force of it was enough to knock him forward into the backseat, his knees giving out just as he entered the car. He shook all over, every limb and nerve; even his breath rattled through him with all the strength of a storm. He combed through his hair with trembling fingers, the sleek hairstyle falling apart, then pressed the meat of his palm into his eyes. The pressure offered a small comfort against his raging thoughts.

Viktor Nikiforov was in Japan.

_He must have figured it out,_ Yuuri could only conclude, _I left too many loose ends._ The image of Celestino came back unbidden, his tan smiling face morphed into an expression of pain before it stilled into one of death. His body had been left at the club without anyone to identify or claim it, but maybe the Russians figured out who he was anyway. Or maybe someone had recognized Yuuri when he was out in Sochi the days before. His face wasn’t well known, yet the possibility always existed that he’d be spotted by a previous mark or another hitman or whoever ran in the same circles as he did. Or maybe Viktor himself had put the pieces together and realized Yuuri had been lying the entire night, had tracked down the errant Japanese stranger as he slunk out of the country and back to his homeland.

Why else would he be here if not to kill Yuuri? Why else would he have encroached on the _kumicho_ ’s territory if not revenge?

“Katsuki-sama,” his driver said, cutting into his rapidly spiraling thoughts. Yuuri looked out blearily from the cover of his hands. “Shall I take you back to your hotel?”

“No,” he croaked out, “I need a drink.”

He ended up in a familiar bar, one of the family’s various holdings at the center of Kabukichō.[5] The bouncer at the door recognized whose car he pulled up in, even if he hadn’t recognized Yuuri himself, so he was waved through ahead of the line as soon as he walked up. 

It was a busy night. A large crowd had come out, full of smiling intoxicated people more than willing to blow their money at the bar. Music poured out from the overhead speakers in time with the flashing strobe lights—something techno with a pulsing electric beat at its core, washing over a dance floor that was already at capacity. Yuuri found a secluded booth in the back and slid into it, laying his head against the backrest for a moment, willing himself to disappear. A hostess came up to him with a welcoming smile and asked for his order, and he roughly called out for a bottle of gin to be brought straight to the table.

He drank the first glass in under a minute, and the second not long after. In the back of his mind, Yuuri wondered if his drinking was starting to become a problem. But he ignored the thought as soon as it surfaced, the sting of the liquor taking away the edge he’d been feeling since he left Leroy’s company.

“Rough day?” A flirtatious voice said in heavily accented English. The tone was low and sweet, like biting into a piece of dark chocolate. Yuuri grunted as a hand came to rest on his shoulder, and he shrugged off the unwanted touch even as he took another sip of his third glass of gin. 

“Not interested.”

“You haven’t even looked at me,” the voice said with a laugh. “What a shame. But maybe I just don’t have what it takes to impress you, Mr. Japanese _Ace_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Blackmail, mentions of drug and alcohol abuse, prostitution of minors, and human trafficking. 
> 
> More misuse of languages I do not speak (shoutout to my co-author, Google Translate). 
> 
> [1][Sōkaiya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%8Dkaiya) (総会屋) are specialized racketeers unique to Japan, and often associated with the Yakuza that extort money from or blackmail companies by threatening to publicly humiliate companies and their management, usually in their annual meeting.
> 
> [2]Sajang-nim (사장) is a respectful term for president or boss.
> 
> [3]Geondal (건달) refers to the South Korean mafia and organized crime, whereas kkangpae are "street thugs."
> 
> [4]Lóngtóu (龙头) literally meaning "dragon head," refers to the head of a Triad organization. 
> 
> [5][Kabukichō](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabukich%C5%8D,_Tokyo) (歌舞伎町) is an entertainment and red-light district in Shinjuku, Tokyo. It is the location of many host and hostess clubs, love hotels, shops, restaurants, and nightclubs, and is often called the "Sleepless Town" (眠らない街).
> 
>    
> Just wanna put it out there that I love all my kids (i.e. the characters on YOI) but also I love suffering lmao. I appreciate all your comments, kudos, bookmarks, etc.! I'm overjoyed at the response to this fic. You are all so encouraging and lovely and I am so excited to write more. Will be updating every Monday/Tuesday until the foreseeable future starting the week after next. Find me at my YOI blog [witchsbane](https://witchsbane.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat!
> 
> [Update: Just gonna add this in, changed it to Monday/Tuesday instead of Sunday/Monday for work reasons. ;) Also fixed up more of the slang as I do the research! Nothing big.]
> 
> (ﾉ´ з `)ノ See you next level!


	5. Mirabilia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mirabilia
> 
> 1\. Miracles, marvels  
> 2\. Describes the small or large delightful uncanny wonders in everyday life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at the end of chapter.

Yuuri inhaled sharply through his nose—then again, and again—until his body felt full to bursting. The glass was frozen halfway off his lips, the gin lingering sourly in his mouth. Its fumes rose up in a single, heady wave that mixed unpleasantly with the sex-and-sweat odor of the club. For a brief moment, it was almost as if he had slipped into a fever dream. His vision funneled down into a single point of focus, where all he could see was the pale hand still cupped around the curve of his shoulder, and the music seemed to warp chaotically in on itself as it droned senselessly in the background.

He swallowed the rest of the gin with some effort, set his glass down, and turned.

By then, it shouldn’t have surprised him how beautiful Viktor Nikiforov truly was. He had seen that same face in hundreds of different iterations, in still photographs and video footage and even now face-to-face. But something about the way Yuuri remembered him seemed washed out in comparison to the real man, who was so vibrant he nearly glowed, illuminated as he was by the blacklights of the club. Memories could never do justice to the smooth marble of Viktor’s cheek, nor the halo spun around his silver hair, nor the elegant lines of a body Yuuri knew was as solid as it looked.

He peered up through the fringe of his lashes and hair, at the Russian man who stood apart from the molten heat of the club as if he existed in his own pocket of reality, and it occurred to Yuuri that he had experienced this same moment once before. Fear and excitement gnawed at him in a familiar place, like picking at a wound just recently scabbed over, and the twinge of it was pain and pleasure all at once. He must have been more buzzed than he originally thought because all his muscles were loose, soft, despite every instinct he had telling him to _run_. 

He’d learned about something called the fight-or-flight response years ago, in some half-remembered lesson of his past. When faced with a threat to its survival, the body reacted by flooding the brain with so much adrenaline that the only thing it could do was either attack or flee. The heart beat faster, blood pressure elevated, muscles tensed—all in anticipation of _something_ just on the precipice of happening, and all within the narrow space of a few seconds. But he didn’t feel any of that, oddly enough. He only felt the strange sensation of coming apart from the inside, as if all the strings holding him together had suddenly been cut loose.  

"How did you find me?"

Instead of answering, Viktor slid into the seat across from him. He stretched himself out, long limbs sprawled into a languid pose, more suited to the extravagance of a throne than the cramped booth. His legs brushed against Yuuri's underneath the table. With one gloved hand he gestured for the hostess to bring him an empty glass and with the other extracted a slim golden cigarette case from his jacket, slipping one into his mouth before proffering it up to Yuuri. "I had you tailed," he said casually, shrugging when the Japanese man declined. He poured himself two fingers of gin from the bottle already on the table and lit the end of his cigarette with a match, all smooth motion as he did so. He left the case sitting on the table, where it caught the light and gleamed painfully into Yuuri’s eyes. ”You are a difficult man to reach, did you know that, Mr. Ace?”

There was nothing subtle about what he was doing. But unlike Leroy, Viktor Nikiforov didn’t wear his confidence so much as become it. Everything he did was fine-tuned to crowd into Yuuri’s space, like he belonged there by the very fact of his existence alone, until he felt suffocated under that great presence. From Viktor’s sweeping gestures to his easy smile, each calculated move was full of casual disregard, as if to somehow say without words— _you’re no threat to me, you are nothing to a man like me_.

He wasn’t wrong. Yuuri missed that golden opportunity in Sochi, on a night very much like this, and it seemed Viktor was here to exact his pound of flesh.

“I don’t make it a point to advertise where I am,” Yuuri said, but without heat. There was no use in fighting, or running, any longer.

“Or who you are,” Viktor said. His smile was small, knowing, and looking at it made Yuuri sick to his stomach. “It was difficult to come by any information on you at all. I paid a lot of money just to find out who you worked for, Mr. Ace, and even came to Japan for the privilege of meeting you myself.”

“What do you want from me?” The words dragged out of him, graveled. He drank more of his gin, the burn of it doing little to alleviate the pulse firing in his throat.

“You have a certain reputation in our line of work,” the Russian continued as if he hadn’t heard Yuuri at all. Or perhaps just hadn’t cared. “Lohengrin was your work, yes? It is quite a feat to singlehandedly wipe out an entire branch of the Cosa Nostra, especially one as prolific as the Di Angelo Famiglia. You were the talk of Europe for some time, though Doña Crispino will never admit to making use of your particular services.”[1]

_Lohengrin_.

Yuuri tilted his head up towards the ceiling, surprised, closing his eyes as the world suddenly swam out of focus. It took several long minutes for his alcohol-laden brain to make sense of what Viktor was saying, but the memories came back to him quickly enough—first in waves, then all at once. He found himself caught in the downpour of it, the heat and noise of the club fading into the antiseptic cleanliness of a hospital room he visited six years ago.

Sara Crispino was young, beautiful, and terrible in her fury. Her long black hair was a tangled heap against the side of her face, the skin around her dark eyes bruised as if she hadn’t slept in days. According to the nurses Yuuri had overheard on his way over, that was a likely scenario, considering the vigil she kept at her brother’s bedside since he was admitted to the burn care unit two weeks ago. _A fire,_ they whispered with looks of pity on their faces, _destroyed their home and killed their parents. He’ll be scarred for life. What a terrible accident._

It wasn’t, of course. According to Celestino’s dossier, the fire was a failed assassination attempt. The Di Angelo Famiglia had been trying to edge out the Crispinos from Sicily for more than half a century, and had finally decided to wipe out the entire rival family in one fell swoop. Yuuri could think of few things more cruel than dying trapped in your own home, surrounded by your fine things burning all around you, with the people you love screaming for it to stop. 

Apparently, neither could the Di Angelos. 

Sara sat up as soon as he walked into the room, turning towards him with a glare intended to cut someone to pieces. Even at night, the Sicilian summer left the breeze sun-drenched and warm as it drifted through the open window, but all Yuuri could smell in the air was the acrid tinge of burnt flesh. Michele Crispino was lying unconscious on the bed, and probably better off for it. Half his body was wrapped in sterile bandages that could not quite cover the angry redness blooming all over his skin, starting from his left arm and winding up his torso and the side of his neck. The edges of them were blackening already, and would leave swathes of ropey scars that could never be hidden if they healed at all.

“I want them dead. I want them _all_ dead.” Her crackling voice cut through the room; she had been caught in the fire too, but there was not a mark on her. Her fists clenched tight over the bed sheet and Yuuri could practically hear her teeth grind into each other, as if it was all she could do to keep from shouting out her next words. “They’re going to pay for what they did to him.”

“And for your parents, too?” He asked curiously, but she shook her head violently. The look in her eyes was manic.

“They can rot in hell, all of them together! This was _their_ vendetta, them and their parents and their parents’ parents. Mickey,” here her breath hitched, like she was close to tears, “he carried me out of the house. He saved me, when they only tried to save themselves.” She paused, casting a long loving look towards her twin, and Yuuri’s heart squeezed in painful recognition. “Ciao Ciao said that if anyone could do it, you could. I’ll pay whatever it takes. I don’t care if we have to empty out the pockets of half this town, I don’t care how you do it—just kill them all.”

And so he did. 

 

* * *

 

The blue target wavered through his crosshairs, leaning slightly to the left as the breeze picked up. Yuri sucked at his teeth, adjusting the position of his rifle from atop the roof, steadying his rapidly tiring arm. His grip hadn’t been right ever since he got out of the hospital. The doctors all said he was lucky to be alive—another few hours and the blood loss would have been fatal. As it was, he came out of the ordeal with a hole in his side and a few weeks of recovery that mandated bedrest, observation, and physical therapy.

Of course, he hadn’t listened to their advice and neither had Yakov. He was whisked back to St. Petersburg as soon as he was well enough to endure the long car ride, so he could be seen properly by the family doctor and left to convalesce in his own home. His grandfather wasn’t happy; he sat stoically in the backseat during the entire trip when he was usually all chatter with Yuri. For once, everyone was quiet, and the somber mood that descended over the group told him more about how close to death he had truly come than anything the doctors could have told him.

If he had his way, Yuri knew that his grandfather would have plucked him out of the Bratva’s hands and taken him straight back to Moscow. He might have actually tried it when Yuri was unconscious or still too delirious from the morphine to protest, but both of them were in too deep to back out. The safest place would now forever be in the mansion, surrounded all over by byki at their beck and call.[2] His grandfather never understood the Bratva or what drew Yuri into its fold, thought it was simply the arrogant temptation of power and glory and riches that this life of crime could offer. But those were nothing compared to the fierce loyalty Yuri found in each member of the family: their willingness to lay down their lives for their brothers and sisters if necessary, and the promise of never leaving anyone behind.

There was nothing for them in Moscow but their empty wallets, and even emptier home.

Which is why it stung when Viktor flew off to Japan without him. Yuri knew he was young—even by the standards of the Bratva—but there was no one in the family better with a rifle than him, barring the Living Legend himself. And Viktor wouldn’t keep that title for long; he could shoot a man from a mile away, but Yuri _knew_ he could do better. If only they gave him a chance to prove himself.

He adjusted his grip again, checked the wind and his sight one last time, and took the shot.

The dummy’s blue head exploded, spattering the ground with the dark red paint stored inside. Yuri grunted as the recoil echoed through the bones of his shoulder and arm, the wound in his side glancing with pain. He looked through the scope, letting out a dissatisfied sound when he noticed that his aim had gone slightly wide.

“Impressive,” a voice said from behind. Yuri turned to see his new bodyguard standing a few meters back, eyes locked on the distant smudge where his target was set up.

He sucked at his teeth again, letting out a soft grunt as he sat up. “Not good enough. It was half a mile, maybe a little more. I would have missed if it was any further.”

“Looked impressive to me,” Otabek said, with a shrug that was surprisingly not condescending. “The doctor said shooting would aggravate your injury.”

“What, you here to drag me back to bed?” Yuri snapped.

He held the rifle a little tighter, ready to turn and fight the older boy, but Otabek only shook his head in response. “Do what you like.” Yuri blinked in shock, though it lasted only fro a fraction of a second, before he got back into position to take another shot. The second one was better, and he missed the third by a wide margin much to his frustration.

His resolve only lasted another half hour outside before the cold air bit into his skin, forcing him to get up and gather his things. Yuri trudged back into the mansion just as the snow started to fall. Otabek followed sedately behind him all the way to the doors of his rooms, where he probably would have stayed if Yuri hadn’t invited him in. Dropping down onto the couch, Yuri began to disassemble and clean each part of his rifle. This was one of the first things Viktor ever taught him. The weapon was an extension of the marksman, and should be as respected and cared for as his very own body.

But the thought of Viktor still rankled, and practice hadn’t done anything except darken his already black mood. He set the barrel down on his thigh a little rougher than strictly necessary, looking up at the older boy still standing by the door. “Well?” He snarled, jerking his head towards the other side of the couch; he barely waited for Otabek to take a seat before he started talking again. “I just can’t believe Viktor left me behind _again_. They’re treating me like such a kid, when I’m old enough to go on assignments by myself! And Viktor _promised_ he’d give me one soon, fuck, but now he’s off having a good time in Japan and I’m stuck _here_ under house arrest.”

If he sounded bitter, then Otabek was smart enough not to comment on it. Instead, he asked the question that had been burning through Yuri for days now. “So what are you going to do about it?” 

“What the fuck _can_ I do about it? It’s not like I can…” And the thought that had once sounded insane, when he was thinking it in the privacy of his own mind, was suddenly renewed with such a force that his voice stopped short for a moment. He blinked at Otabek, not sure if he should say it out loud, as if by doing so he would either will it into existence or cause it to disappear entirely. He swallowed thickly against that feeling and steeled himself. “It’s not like I can go after him.” But Otabek just stared at him impassively, the expression on his face unchanging, neutral. “Will you stop me?”

“I am бык, not a babysitter.” Then, he smiled for the first time since Yuri met him. “Besides, with the eyes of a soldier, it’s not as if I could tell you anything you didn’t want to do.”

 

* * *

 

Yuuri came out of the memory feeling drugged. For a long moment, he might as well have been. His pulse dragged, his breathing so deep it filled him up all the way to the pit of his stomach. The gray fog of his mind was lifting, but slowly, the club coming to life around him in flashes that felt disconnected to reality. Seeing Viktor, still sitting patiently across from him, was like slipping into a waking dream. He couldn’t move from the weight sitting atop his chest, every nerve paralyzed as the scene before him sharpened into something that couldn’t possibly be real.

He put the glass to his lips, hoping to ease the sudden dryness of his throat, but it was already empty. “Don Crispino,” he corrected softly, “Michele was the one to inherit.”

Viktor waved his hand dismissively. “We both know that Michele is Don in name only. The Crispino Famiglia answers to Sara. But that’s part of why we are both here. One of my _shestyorka_ —associates—is a close friend of the Doña and convinced her to loosen her lips.”[3] He tilted his head towards the bar and his silver hair caught the light so beautifully that Yuuri almost forgot to look at where he was gesturing. A red-head stood not far from their booth, dressed in slinky pink slip, her smokey eyes fixed on them both. “I had her follow you here as soon as you came out of your meeting.” 

“What do you want from me?” He asked again. _Lohengrin_ was a stone lodged into his ribcage, his heart beating rough against the word.  

“What you did for Sara Crispino, I want you to do for me,” Viktor said, leaning over to tip his cigarette into his gin, both untouched save for that first drag and sip. He poured the rest of the bottle into Yuuri’s empty glass. “I want you to hunt down the Sungiru Pa and kill them all.”

The glass fell through his fingers, the crack of it against the floor going unheard under the din of the music. Yuuri thought he _must_ have heard wrong, _must_ have misunderstood something over the course of the conversation. But Viktor sat there with a hot look in his gemstone eyes—familiar, exactly like Sara’s all those years ago—that was directed not at him, but at some enemy in the distance only he could see. “The… Sungiru Pa,” he said slowly. It felt clumsy in his mouth, off, like learning an alien language or speaking in tongues. “You want me to…”

“Hunt them down. I want to destroy everything they’ve built, their businesses and wealth and homes. I want to wipe them off the map so thoroughly that people will question whether they existed or not,” Viktor spat out. His hands were clenched tight around his glass; any more pressure and it would surely break under the strain of his grip. “ _No one_ crosses me, or my family, and gets to live.”

All at once, the knotted lump in Yuuri’s chest unravelled and was replaced with a different kind of fear. It was more walking on a tightrope than coming face to face with the barrel of a gun. There was a thin line that stretched out beneath his feet and, if he treaded lightly, it might just save his life; but it was all he could do to keep himself upright. He prayed that his voice would come out steadier than his hands, which shook so badly he had to hide them underneath the table. They were folded up in each other, fingers locked in the empty spaces between, as if that could keep all the anxious energy inside of him from spilling out.

“And Leroy…” He had to make sure, had to ask, had to hear it out loud. Was he really this lucky? Though maybe that wasn't the right word, either. “You used his company just to, what, lure me out?” 

“Who?” Viktor asked, looking so baffled that Yuuri felt the urge to repeat himself, though he didn’t get the chance to before the other man began talking again. “And partially. The company was a convenient way to locate you once we learned who you were working for, yes. But it is also part of my proposition for you, Mr. Ace.” Viktor leaned over the table then, sliding the slim golden case towards him. He gestured for Yuuri to open it and inside, nestled atop the hand-rolled cigarettes, was a small ziplock bag filled with a fine white powder. “We have forty kilos of cocaine ready to ship out of Japan, with a street value of over twenty-five million dollars. You help me get what I want, and it’s yours.”

Yuuri trembled as he reached out for it, the smooth plastic catching on his clammy skin, and lifted it out of the case. The powder had a pearly luster even through the bag that sent an awful, hopeful feeling rocketing through him. Forty kilos, twenty-five million. “The _kumicho_ -“ He choked even as he said it, the thought going unfinished, but Viktor seemed to understand anyway.

"Go back to your master, then, if you have to." Viktor punctuated his words by snapping the lid of his cigarette case closed, tucking it back into his jacket. He rose from the booth in one smooth motion, fairly looming as he did so, and waved his hand at the bag still cupped in Yuuri's palm. "Try it, test it, do whatever you need to. I assure you, that's as pure as it gets. You have three days to give me an answer that I will like—I know where to find you.

And with that, he turned fully from Yuuri and headed out towards the bar. The red-head quickly fell into step beside him, her slender arm casually looped in the empty space left by his. They looked beautiful together, bright and luminous in Yuuri's line of sight until the crowd swallowed them up and they disappeared.

  

Yuuri left the bar, unable to focus with the music pounding loud in his ears. He could have easily returned to his suite, but he half-hoped the walk would clear away some of the alcohol-induced haze still lingering in his system. Of course, the streets of Kabukichō were hardly better than the crowds at the bar in terms of noise. Though it was a cool night, just on the edge of snow, people were still roaming around and looking for a good time at one of the many clubs and hotels that lined the district. 

Forty kilos, twenty-five million dollars.

There was something terribly mocking in Viktor’s voice that dogged at him, looped in continuous swirls around his head. The words barely made sense to him; Yuuri couldn’t begin to imagine what they truly meant, only that it was a lot of drugs and a lot of money. It was like trying to quantify all the water in the ocean to someone who had only ever seen enough to fill his own cup: glancing, but never truly grasping.

Forty kilos of pure, uncut cocaine. How many people would it take to even make a dent in that supply? How many lives would be ruined?

Twenty-five million dollars. That was over two billion yen. That money could feed hundreds of families for years. That money could erase thousands of debts.

A hot swell of hatred burned through him suddenly, so fierce it knocked the breath out of his lungs. All that wealth, all that power, and what did they do but make the whole world miserable in their wake? Men like the _kumicho_ , like Viktor Nikiforov, were all the same. Greed and cruelty and selfishness ran deep inside of them—an ugliness they masked behind beautiful faces and expensive things.  

Yet, even as Yuuri thought this, hope bloomed unbidden in his chest like he hadn’t felt in years and he knew that he was exactly the same. He’d hurt people, had killed, was willing to do anything if the price was right. 

Forty kilos, twenty-five million dollars. Was it enough?

“Katsuki-sama,” a voice called out to him from the street. Yuuri looked up to see his driver, leaning out through the open window of the limousine. “Will you be headed back to your hotel now?” He blinked, just then realizing that he stopped moving in the middle of the sidewalk. The drunken haziness faded into something more manageable as the wind whipped into him, sending a series of shivers down his spine as his body began to feel the cold once more. He nodded his head and stepped into the car.

It was past midnight by the time he got back to the hotel. A gentle snow was falling outside, and he watched the delicate shower of it through the tall French windows of the penthouse suite. Tokyo shone brilliantly from that high up, unfurling in a sea of lights that stretched out all the way towards the horizon, crested every now and again by skyscrapers jutting out insistently from the other buildings. The concierge left a chilled bottle of champagne on the table, with a clean flute just beside the bucket and a warm robe draped across the chair waiting for him. All the lights were off and it was quiet, as if he were the only person who existed in the world.

Everything here was different from how he’d grown up, and it made him miss Hasetsu all the more. He missed the low squat of the onsen, the chatter filling up the inn late into the night, the warm air drifting through the shoji screens that wrapped around him in a comfortable embrace. He missed the ocean and the inky sky, where he could see real stars undiminished by the pollution of the city lights. He missed the people and his parents and Mari, and wanted with everything inside of him to go home.

Maybe he finally could.

He thought about Viktor, as he looked then in Sochi and now. The anger in his eyes was deadly, palpable, but none of it was reserved for Yuuri. 

It was a stupid move, but he kept Viktor’s ring even after he fled Russia with his tail between his legs. The golden signet burned a hole through his pocket as he travelled, flying across two continents, until he finally took it out in the privacy of his own room. Yuuri had worn himself out crying by then, and held the thing in his weak hands until it felt almost like a part of him. He never could have imagined this days ago, when he shoved the ring into the space beneath his floorboards where he kept everything important to him—his dossier, his notes, and now the ring that reminded him of every mistake he had made. 

But somehow, he got lucky. Twice he had cheated death at the hands of the Living Legend, and had been handed a gift in the form of forty kilograms of coke and twenty-five million dollars.

_Lohengrin_ echoed in his head, his heart. _Lohengrin, Lohengrin, Lohengrin_. 

Could he really do it all over again? It almost broke him the first time, twisted something irreparably inside of him that he could no longer recognize. For weeks he walked around and felt the wet slide of blood on his skin, found it caked underneath his fingernails when he looked too closely. Celestino held him for hours when he finished; he cried and cried, until all the tears had been pulled out of him.

He was responsible for so many deaths already—Celestino’s included. But if there was even a small chance that this could be his last assignment, then he needed to take it. Yuuri was as greedy and cruel and selfish as the rest of them, and he wanted out.

Yuuri looked through the windows again, the snow falling harder now as the night deepened. It was almost the New Year, he vaguely recalled; the holidays had lost their meaning to him some time ago, without the ones he loved to spend it with. 

_By this time next year,_ he promised himself, _I’ll be free or die trying._

With shaking hands, he took his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number he knew by heart. The ringing echoed in the room, so loud that it felt almost as if the walls should be shuddering from the force of it.

Someone picked up, a clipped voice calling out his name from the other end. 

“Yuuri.”

Forty kilos, twenty-five million dollars. 

Was it enough to buy his life back?

“ _Kumicho_ …”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Blackmail, guns, drugs and drug trafficking, mentions of murder and violence.
> 
> Also, there will not be any Otayuri in this. I do not want to write a relationship with a minor and an adult that would be seen as anything except exploitative, and while this is a dark story that's not the tone I am going to take for Yuri. 
> 
>    
> [1][Cosa Nostra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia) (meaning "Our Thing") refers to the Sicilian mafia, and is also used by the Italian-American mafia.
> 
> [2]Byki (Быки́, sing. бык), literally meaning "bulls," are bodyguards in the Russian mafia.
> 
> [3]Shestyorka are "associates" of the Russian mafia, they provide intelligence on a certain target. 
> 
> †[ _Lohengrin_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohengrin_\(opera\)): Aside from being one of Yuuri's skates in the show, though only mentioned in reference to Minami's short program, it is a Romantic opera written by Richard Wagner based on the Knight of the Swan. A Lady is accused of murdering her brother after he suddenly disappears into the woods in order to take his title. She is sentenced to ordeal by combat and a mysterious, unnamed knight comes to defend her honor. I thought it would be fitting for Michele and Sara, because one of his skates was called "Destiny of Knights"!
> 
> ‡[Sniper Kills](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_recorded_sniper_kills): The longest recorded sniper shot is officially at 2,475 meters or 1.54 miles. For Viktor (because he's probably record breaking in whatever he does let's be real), he can shoot closer to 2 miles on a good day. 
> 
> §[Cocaine Prices](http://nypost.com/2013/11/21/48m-worth-of-cocaine-washes-ashore-japanese-beach/): These were based on a story that broke four years ago about 80 kilograms of cocaine washing up in Yokosuka, Japan that were priced at around $48 million, or ¥4.8 billion (give or take).
> 
> Thank you for your continued support! Your kudos, bookmarks, etc. mean everything to me. I love all your comments and I read them often, because you all are so nice and inspire me to write. Updating now on Mondays/Tuesdays. Find me at my YOI blog [witchsbane](https://witchsbane.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat!


	6. Nazlanmak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nazlanmak
> 
> 1\. The act of pretending hesitation or indifference when one is, in reality, enthusiastic or willing  
> 2\. Saying no when you're dying to say yes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at end of chapter.

“So how was he, then? The famous Japanese Ace,” Mila asked as soon as they stepped out of the bar. Their limousine was already waiting just outside the building, and the chauffeur quickly ushered them towards the backseat and away from the cool winter night. It wasn’t a long trip to their hotel but they found themselves settling into the ride anyway, speaking in hushed tones. “Was he everything you thought he’d be?”

That was a good question. And if Viktor were being completely honest with himself, then the answer would be a resounding _no_.

Though Mila had no way of knowing it, Viktor had actually heard of the Ace long before the Crispinos ever contracted the hitman’s particular services. Yakov liked to keep abreast of developments abroad, especially when it came to possible threats against either the family or their various international assets. Usually the news was dull, limited to either shifts in foreign trade agreements or inconvenient laws being passed to restrict border access. But nearly ten years ago, whispers began to stir about a rising star in the Japanese criminal underground.

The rumors were nothing terribly interesting, at least when they first started. Stories emerged here and there about some wayward president of a company being mysteriously killed in an accident, or a rival gang that suddenly found themselves without senior leadership, or a low-level politician dying under what the police deemed suspicious circumstances. There was no concrete evidence linking any of these incidents together, seeming more like an uptick of unrelated violent crimes than the work of a single man. But there was a certain quality about them that struck Viktor, enough for him to take notice, a finesse to each hit that was unpolished yet undeniable if one cared to look closely.

The kills were a contradiction of the personal and the clinical: each target was dealt with at close range, though without the sadism typical of such an encounter; crime scenes were often messily handled, though never with any witnesses or unnecessary casualties left behind in the aftermath. Whoever performed the hits was brutal, yet merciful, as the killing blows were always decisively struck. Viktor himself preferred distance when he worked—the further from a target he was, the more confident he became about the job. It was easier to trust his own skills than the unpredictable actions of human beings, and it was this confidence that made him most suitable to the role of a sniper.

However, the most surprising thing about each hit was the absence of a signature: a calling card of sorts, so that clients and other contractors would know whose hand was at work. The cases remained unclaimed for years; though it wasn’t long before mentions of the Ace began to crop up in regards to other deaths, nothing had ever been confirmed, least of all by the man himself.

Then, _Lohengrin_ happened.

The Crispinos were one of the oldest crime families in Sicily, with connections both legitimate and illegitimate spanning all over Europe and over the course of many decades. Their bitter rivalry with the Di Angelo Famiglia had lasted almost as long, in a well-known vendetta that bloodied the streets of Palermo for years and did not look to have an end in sight. But this was largely ignored by the police and those not directly allied with either clan, as fighting was kept strictly within the families.

It was amongst the many unspoken rules governing the Cosa Nostra; mafiosi always drew the line when it came to involving outsiders and their own children in that kind of violence until they were fully initiated, especially in something as deadly as a blood feud.

The fire that killed Don Crispino and his wife started from within the villa, burning from the bottom up. It was accelerated by the copious amounts of gasoline strewn all over the ground and across the exits, spreading alarmingly fast—too fast for the alarm to be raised, even if there had been anyone to call for help. Unluckily, the household staff had been caught in the crossfire, trapped in a separate wing of the villa and left to burn with the family they served.

Viktor was away on business when Yakov got the call from his Italian contacts. The Crispinos were associates of the Feltsman Bratva, if not exactly friends of the family, and news of their death rippled out across Europe almost as quickly as the fire that reduced the villa to ashes. The Di Angelos denied involvement, but no one truly believed them, especially as details of the night emerged and it became clear that the blaze was intentionally set. An undercurrent of disapproval ran through the Cosa Nostra at the violation of their code of honor. Still, no one outright challenged the Di Angelos, who were simply too powerful in Sicily now that the Crispino Famiglia had all been snuffed out.

The deaths began a few weeks later. They were inconspicuous at first, coincidental in their timing and warranting only a passing glance before curious eyes slipped away to some other matter. An accident here, a heart attack there—tragedies for those who loved them, but nothing out of the ordinary and certainly nothing that could have prepared them for what was to follow. The Di Angelo Famiglia had no idea they were being hunted until it was already too late, when the bodies of their capo bastone and his two sons were found in the Teatro di San Carlo during a performance of _Lohengrin_. They each were dealt with a blow to the back of the head, throats quietly slit as the audience gave a standing ovation to the bowing cast and the curtains were drawn down below, whatever screams they made masked by the thunderous applause.

The media went wild, calling it _La faida di Palermo_ , though the public came to know it simply as _Lohengrin_. † News of the murders reached Viktor all the way in Switzerland. It was all anyone could talk about; even Christophe, who usually had no appetite for the more gruesome aspects of criminal life, couldn’t help himself. “They must be very skilled,” the lawyer had said one morning, reading over the paper as they ate breakfast, “whoever it is. The Di Angelo Famiglia have no recourse but to run and hide.”

Viktor raised his brow, eyeing the article from across the table. “So you think this торпеда poses that much of a threat?”[1]

Chris slid the newspaper towards him. “This,” he said, tapping on the bolded headline that took up half the front page, “was a declaration of war. A sign of complete and utter confidence. The Di Angelos, well. Ils sont dans le pétrin—in other words, completely fucked, if you want to be crude about it—unless they find out who did this.”

 

**OPERA TURNS BLOODY IN SICILIAN MAFIA WAR**

**3 found dead in last Tuesday’s performance of _Lohengrin_ at Teatro di San Carlo**

**NAPLES, Italy—Over the past month, a series of violent killings has provided a new meaning for the old adage, “Vedi Napoli e poi muori! (See Naples and die!)” Carmelo Di Angelo and his sons were visiting from Palermo, Sicily when they were violently killed during an evening performance at the opera. The reason, police claim: the family’s involvement to an organized crime faction locked in a longstanding vendetta with the recently deceased Crispino family. Sources say that the police are looking into possible links between this incident and other recent deaths in… (Cont. on page 4)**

 

Christophe was right, as always. The death toll rose to staggering heights over a period of two months, and it wasn’t long before the Di Angelo Famiglia broke even more of the Cosa Nostra’s codes. Hardened mafiosi were cowed into begging the police for help, to seek protection for their families. They were frightened, and understandably so, as they quickly realized it was only a matter of time before they became the next mark. By the time Sara and Michele Crispino emerged from hiding, having survived the fire that killed their parents, there was no one left to continue the vendetta and everyone knew who had won the war.

It was around this time that stories of Japan’s Ace made their way to the continent—a top enforcer for the Yakuza, rumored to have been seen in Europe as of late and asking questions about the Di Angelos, though no one could put a face or name to the man. Sara was notoriously tight-lipped about her involvement with and connections to the hitman, but it was impossible to keep such a secret for long in their circles, and the Ace became a household name within weeks of the Crispinos’ miraculous rise from the ashes. Everyone had tried and failed to pry the information from Sara, even Yakov for a brief stint. It wasn’t until Viktor sent Mila for it that Sara finally broke her six-year silence and gave them a single name: Minami Ryūichi.

That was the hardest part. From there, it was simply a matter of tracking down some asset that Viktor could gainfully exploit and waiting for the Yakuza boss to take the bait. The cocaine was part of the Bratva’s original deal with the Sungiru Pa, so he was prepared to lose it, and if he could ruin the Koreans’ market along the way then it was killing two birds with one stone. What was twenty-five million when it came to revenge, after all?

The fact that they got the infamous hitman upon first contact was just plain luck.

Meeting the Ace was an interesting experience, though perhaps _underwhelming_ would have been a better term for it. Viktor’s expectations had been exceedingly high, imagining someone oozing power and confidence enough to warrant a reputation as the “devil of Japan,” but instead the Ace was a quiet thing. Mila pointed him out from across the room: a solitary figure, wrapped in an expensive but wrinkled suit, hunched over a long pour of his drink. Everything about him felt ordinary, when Viktor felt there should have been _something_ that marked him out from the rest of the rabble. He was of average build, average height, average looks, with the same dark hair and dark eyes of almost every other Japanese person Viktor had met. He was a nothing of a man.

It was… disappointing, to say the least. While Viktor was keenly aware that looks counted for nothing when it came to skill, it was difficult to take such a man seriously. He acted like a startled fawn when cornered by the hunter, and in fact, seemed to diminish entirely under the attention. His shoulders slumped into his body, trying to fold himself into as little space as possible, practically disappearing into his seat. There was no presence about him at all; he faded into the scenery, almost as if there were a pocket of empty air in the place where he should have been. And when he spoke, his voice had a thin, stilted accent. It wavered, asking for permission to be heard over the din of the club.

Still, Mila was sure that this was the real deal, nodding when Viktor looked back at her in askance. He wasn’t convinced. Not yet. But Viktor was patient and he could wait, if all it took was time, to see what lay hidden inside the man who sat wilting in front of him—even if he had to pry out that viciousness from underneath the Ace’s skin himself. 

Mila looked at him. He had been quiet for too long, lost in his memories, and she repeated the question. “What did you think?”

The edges of his smile were sharp enough to cut. “He’ll do.”

 

* * *

 

“What was he like? What did he say? How did he look?” Minami was an endless fountain of questions, his awed voice a constant companion over the last three days, drifting just behind Yuuri as they walked the compound. The young blonde practically jumped on him the moment he got back to Nada-ku, and his energy only rocketed upwards when Yuuri asked the household staff to begin preparations for a visit from the infamous Pakhan-to-be. Everyone erupted into a flurry of activity at hearing the news. Surfaces were wiped clean and polished to a new shine, tatami mats aired out or replaced, delicious aromas wafted out from the kitchens as the chefs tried new recipes to please a more European palette. It was almost like Viktor Nikiforov was a prince or some visiting dignitary, though that description was not far off from the truth; he was a legend even to those on the fringes of the criminal underground.

_I heard he’s very handsome_ , Yuuri heard some of the maids whispering from behind the closed fan of their hands, right before they saw him and bowed with a demurred, _Katsuki-sama_.

He didn’t share their enthusiasm, couldn’t feel anything but the pit of dread in his stomach. It was bottomless, tunneling all the way down into the center of the earth. A light sweat broke out all over his skin whenever he thought of the man—the way he moved and spoke, of what he wanted. It was too late to back out now, even if he wanted to. And some desperate part of him really did.

Sochi had been one mistake after another. This was definitely one as well, adding to the long line of them shadowing Yuuri ever since he stepped off the plane at Sheremetyevo. That Viktor would discover his ruse, figure out who he was and what he did, seemed an inevitability if he thought too much about how badly this could end. He’d die, and painfully at that. If he were lucky enough, he’d take the entire family down with him too.

But an even more desperate part of him, the same one he gave himself over to the night he called the _kumicho_ , thought that maybe it was worth the risk. Death was easy—he’d faced it down a thousand times before and dealt it out even more so. Living, on the other hand, was hard. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep going as he was, an empty shell being driven forward, without the promise of an end in sight. He prayed for this out years ago. Would he really back out, now that it was here?

“I’ve told you all this before, _bocchan_ ,” he said as he loosened the cool silk of his tie, the knot pressed too tight into the divot of his throat. Viktor Nikiforov was due to arrive at any moment, and Yuuri felt entirely unprepared to see him again. Expectation hung heavy in the air, not just from him, but from the whole household.

Minami sighed, all starry-eyed and breathless enthusiasm. “I know. But you just have the coolest life ever, Yuuri-senpai.” He tried not to laugh at the absurdity of that sentence. That wasn’t exactly the word he would have used, but Minami went on talking anyway. “I can’t believe _the_ Viktor Nikiforov came here looking for you _personally_. I mean, I totally can! Because you’re the best there is, but wow!” They stopped only steps away from the banquet hall. The _kumicho_ and _wakagashira_ were already inside, along with a host of servers waiting to attend the meal. “I wish otou-sama would let me see him, too…” [2]

Yuuri swallowed against the knot at his throat, turning to look at Minami. He flicked away the lock of red hair from where it fell into the boy’s face, smiling in spite of himself at the memory of Mari doing the same exact thing to him. “It’s for the best, _bocchan_. Stay innocent for a while longer,” he said, letting his voice go as soft as he dared, before it went flat once more. “You should go. The _kumicho_ won’t be happy if he sees you here.” Minami needed no further encouragement, staring awed at the place where Yuuri had just touched, and squeaked out a goodbye as he rushed away.

The shoji doors slid aside, opening up into a large room awash with luxury. Delicate lanterns were strung along the walls, casting a pale yellow-and-white glow from where the light pushed through the paper, softening the edges of everything they touched. At the center of the room was a long, low table filled to the brim with a spread of decadent food. Everything from the traditional Japanese dishes to the more eclectic European fare was there, arranged artfully, with servers adding on the final touches to the meal. At the head of the table sat the _kumicho_ , dressed soberly in a formal kimono, with the _wakagashira_ to his right and his two guards in separate corners of the room.

Yuuri’s breath caught at the sight. A phantom pain slashed at his finger, reminding him of the last time he had occasion to be in this room. He was standing in the very same spot where his forehead was pressed just days ago, listening to that awful call, anger burning through him. That night seemed so far off in the wake of everything else that happened since, like it was someone else’s memory, but now it returned in full force as he stepped into the light.

"Yuuri," the _kumicho_ intoned. He eyed Yuuri's suit with undisguised disapproval, always preferring a more traditional look on his subordinates, and motioned for him to come forward for a closer inspection. "It will have to do," he said after a long pause, then brusquely jerked his head to the right. "Sit down." Yuuri and the _waka_ froze at the order, staring at each other over the _kumicho_ 's head in disbelief and no small amount of confusion. An awkward tension surfaced between them, the other occupants in the room halting their tasks—the servers stopped working, the guards turned towards the head of the table, waiting in bated breath. The _waka_ 's mouth pulled into a tight frown and, for a moment, Yuuri thought he would say something in protest. But then he moved, silent and stiff with anger, to the other side of the boss. The rest of the room only unstuck itself once Yuuri took up the empty seat on the _kumicho_ 's right, the place of honor. "A fitting change. This deal is your doing, after all."

Unsurprisingly, that didn't make him feel any better.

It wasn't long before the Russian delegation arrived, and it was easy to tell when they did. The air in the compound changed, perceptibly so, charged with an energy that Yuuri _knew_ after having met him had everything to do with Viktor Nikiforov himself. The man couldn't help but draw eyes. His presence was weightier, a center of gravity all his own, pulling others obediently into orbit.

There were only three of them forming the small group, and they were young—so much younger than the _kumicho_ and _waka_ —to be leading one of the most powerful families in Russia. There was the red-headed woman again, pale and slim. She was arm in arm with a different man this time, a tall man with dark hair. He had a severe face, but his eyes were clear and expressive, laser-focused on the people in the room. And finally, entering last, was Viktor.

Their eyes met over the table, only for a brief second, before Yuuri wrenched himself away. His head was bowed as the bosses greeted each other, keeping his gaze locked onto his clenched fists and the way they wrinkled the fabric of his pants. “Please, sit down,” the _kumicho_ said. He swept out his arm in a grand gesture, but his voice was cool, as if such a feast was an every day occurrence. “Join us in a meal before we move on to other matters.”

Dinner went on for what felt like hours, though in reality it couldn’t have been more than one or two. Everything tasted like ash in his mouth; he only took a few half-hearted bites before he had to set aside his plate. Viktor was staring at him still, and had been during the entire meal, as if he were trying to pick Yuuri apart with his eyes alone. It was uncomfortable, so he stayed quiet with his mouth pressed firmly into a thin line, until the conversation around him finally lapsed into silence and the last of the food was taken away. The servers left only a slim flask of sake and a matched set of sakazuki, inlaid with mother of pearl, glimmering at the center of the table.

“Your proposition is an interesting one, Nikiforov,” the _kumicho_ began without preamble. “And I admit, such a partnership would be… extremely beneficial for us. But twenty-five million for the services of just one man? It almost reeks of desperation.”

At that, Yuuri darted a look at the Russians, just quick enough to catch the tightness around their eyes and in the set of their mouths. Except for Viktor. He was all charm, radiating out of the smile he wore, despite the blatant insult thrown at his face. “Nothing we can’t afford to part with, I assure you.” His voice was mocking, light, a reminder that hung in the air between the two men without needing to be spoken out loud. _You are nothing compared to us. We can buy you, I can sell you._ “I prefer to work only with the best, no matter the cost.” His gaze fell to Yuuri again. _I can own you._

The bottomless tunneling of his stomach returned, growing even deeper when the _kumicho_ ’s hand suddenly came down hard against his leg. It squeezed the muscle of his thigh, and Yuuri fought back a flinch when those blunt fingers dug into him. “Yes,” the _kumicho_ ’s grip was tight enough to bruise, “my Yuuri has quite the reputation if even Russia has heard of his exploits.”

“Is there anyone who hasn’t heard of  _Lohengrin_?”

The _kumicho_ laughed, a dark and empty sound. “No, probably not. But therein lies my problem, Nikiforov. You want my Ace to do for you what he did with _Lohengrin_. Even with what you’re paying me, I stand to lose quite a bit if he gets killed now. He’s young, he has years left in my service.” They spoke about him like he was cattle, a piece of livestock, a nothing in their eyes. Yuuri thought his bones might break from how hard his fists clenched.

“An extra ten if he dies, then. Doubled if he doesn’t.” Viktor shrugged, tone light, more suited to talking about the weather. “It would be wise of you to take my offer. The markets of Japan are so charming—it would be a shame if all that coke found itself into someone else’s hands.” An undisguised fury passed through the _kumicho_ ’s face before disappearing just as quick, but that was all it took. Viktor spotted it easily, knew exactly which buttons to push to get his way. “Six months. Give him to me for the next six months, and I promise you’ll be richer than you ever dreamed with the Sungiru out of the way.”

_Six months_. The words lodged right at the center of his chest. _In six months I’ll be free. Or dead._

The _kumicho_ released his vice grip on Yuuri’s leg. “Very well, Nikiforov. Let’s drink on it.” His sharp look prompted Yuuri up and out of his seat, shifting on his knees to pour the sake into the sakazuki. He passed the first dish to the _kumicho_ , then the other to Viktor. As he did, Viktor’s fingers suddenly locked around his wrist and held fast; Yuuri jerked back in surprise, struggling for the briefest moment at the touch, before he was let go again. The _kumicho_ raised up a toast once he was back in his seat. “To the next six months.”

But Viktor was looking at him, still, even as he returned the salute. “To the next six months,” he said, taking a sip of the sake. The skin of Yuuri’s wrist burned hot—like a shackle—like a brand.

 

The night wore on and so did the darkness, deepened and thickened until the sky was an inky black. The moon was completely hidden behind a low cover of cloud, which hung heavily over Nada-ku in preparation for snow, leaving the air crisp as it leeched out all the warmth from the earth. Breathing it in felt good, a painfully clean rush that stretched out his lungs whenever he did. The dinner left him feeling suffocated, choked off in his nice suit and through the press of the walls. He practically ran back to his rooms once it was all over, threw open all the shoji doors leading outside and stripped down to his underwear to feel the chill.

He needed to prepare—pack his things and get some sleep before dawn—but he also wanted to just stand there and _be_. It would be easier if he stayed like this, fell asleep as the heat bled out of his body, out of his too hot skin, out of his wrist where Viktor’s touch lingered. There was a strange hush in freezing to death that appealed to him now; the idea of his heartbeat being lulled into a peaceful, quiet stop was more comfort than he deserved.

Almost mechanically he dropped to his knees, pried open the tatami and floorboards, dug his hand into the carved out space beneath. His fingertips brushed the cool metal of Viktor’s ring and he pulled it out, let it rest in the center of his palm. It was heavier than it looked, the band a thick solid gold that flared into a flat rounded top. The Feltsman Bratva’s seal was etched there, a simple V that had two lines running horizontally through the middle, inscribed within a circle.‡ It was the first time Yuuri had actually looked at it, hadn’t bothered when he first came back from Russia and simply shoved it into his hiding place, but now he couldn’t help it. The ring was clearly worn, well-loved; the shining gold was rubbed into dullness at certain parts, small notches marked the surface of it from obvious use. This ring had been on Viktor’s finger for a long time, and now it was in Yuuri’s hand.

“On your knees already, Yuuri?” A voice cut through the silence from behind. Yuuri spun, his hand automatically closing in a fist to conceal the ring, and saw the _kumicho_ standing in his doorway still dressed in that severe kimono from dinner. Yuuri bowed low, his forehead nearly touching the floor and his arms outstretched in front of him; he chanced a look at his hiding place as he did, relief unfolding in his chest when he saw that the floorboards and tatami were in place. The _kumicho_ stepped closer to him, close enough for Yuuri to see his slippers in his peripheral vision. “Will you bow like this for that filthy _rosuke_ , too?” [3]

The _kumicho_ leaned over, threading his fingers through Yuuri’s hair and pulling him up, out of the bow. Yuuri gasped in pain, straightening his back as the hand jerked his head back, exposing his throat and the soft underside of his jaw. For a few moments they both said nothing, just stared at each other tensely, before the _kumicho_ loosened his hold and let Yuuri go. Those blunt fingers were still on his head, petting him softly, like a dog.

“I suppose you’ll have to, if he asks. A shame that you’ll have to soil yourself with such filth,” the _kumicho_ said. His voice was impossibly, terribly tender. “Take care not to embarrass me, Yuuri. I am still your master, no matter who holds your leash.”

Something inside Yuuri recoiled, reared its head back fiercely at the words. “For the next six months,” he said bravely, with more conviction than he’d ever dared address the _kumicho_ before. “Only for the next six months, then I’m free.”

“Yes, six months.” He didn’t miss the look that passed over the older man’s face, though it was gone lightning quick. The hand moved down from the top of his head, trailing to his chin, where it tilted his face upwards. “Do your best to earn it, Yuuri. I expect great things from you.”

He clenched his fist tight around the ring. Later, when the _kumicho_  had left, he would look at the skin of his palm to find the seal raised up in white weals on his hand.

“I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Mentions of murder and violence, mentions of drug and drug trafficking.
> 
> [1]торпеда (literally meaning "torpedo") are the contract killers in the Bratva. 
> 
> [2]Wakagashira is the second in the chain of command in the Yakuza.
> 
> [3]Rosuke is a derogatory term, used by the Japanese to refer to Russians. 
> 
> †La faida di Palermo: Meaning "The Palermo Feud," based off an actual [mafia feud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scampia_feud) that happened in Italy in 2004 and 2005. 
> 
> ‡Feltsman Bratva Seal: Based on the neo-pagan symbol for the Slavic god, Veles. He rules nature and the underworld. 
> 
> Surprise Viktor POV! Here's what he knows about Lohengrin, from the other side. And what he thinks of the Ace on first meeting. I know you were all curious about our mysterious Russian mafia boss-to-be, so I delivered. And cameo from Christophe, who is a Swiss lawyer lmao. Everyone is doing so much talking, will it ever stop? Will I ever stop? Who knows, stay tuned to find out!
> 
> I had a lot of work to do this week since my boss was out, but I wanted to post this before Tuesday ended so here! Enjoy and thank you for your continued support! Your kudos, bookmarks, etc. mean everything to me. I love all your comments and I read them often, because you all are so nice and inspire me to write. Updating now on Mondays/Tuesdays. Find me at my YOI blog [witchsbane](https://witchsbane.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat!


	7. Debauch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Debauch
> 
> 1\. Destroy or debase the moral purity of; corrupt  
> 2\. A bout of excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures, especially eating and drinking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at end of chapter.
> 
> 3/30/17: I swear I'm uploading the next chapter today. It...got away from me as I was writing and kind of exploded. Sorry for the wait in case you've been wondering where I've gone and disappeared to.

“Again.”

Yuuri was gasping, his breath long and labored. It came out of his chest in heaving waves, shaking him from the top of his spine all the way down to his knees, which were pressed into the rough earth along with his hands. He tried to stand, but couldn’t find the strength. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t hurt—a building, burning ache that started from his bones and radiated up, out, until it squeezed through as the sweat on his skin.

A patent leather shoe wandered into his field of vision. It rose up, planted itself into the plateau of his shoulder, shoved him hard onto his back in a single motion.

“I said again, boy.”

Yuuri rolled over, shaking, bringing himself to his hands and knees once more. He looked up at the guard standing just above him, then at the _kumicho_ watching the scene dispassionately from the sidelines. He had already lost track of how many times he’d heard that command—spoken with that cruel mouth, a hard line in a severe face, cut like a deep notch into wood.

How long had it been since he’d last heard his own name? A month, maybe more; it was difficult to keep track of the way time passed when each day looked the same, surrounded by the blank slate of four bare walls and no windows. Everything blurred together in his memories, a smudged out mix of sleeping and waking and eating and training. Always, always training (but for what, he didn’t know) until his body gave in to exhaustion and he was dragged back to his cell, half-dead and wholly broken. He cried himself to sleep only for the first few weeks of this new life, before he eventually accepted that no one would come rescue him. It took too much to keep going on, sobbing for his family in the echoing dark, when he sometimes didn’t have the sense to crawl into the dip of his mattress and close his eyes.

He missed them, more than he thought possible, more than he thought anyone could feel. They would have called him Yuuri, sweetly, with their arms gently folded over all his hurts.

Now he answered to boy—or dog—or pet.

It took every ounce of his willpower, but he managed to stand at last. Drawing himself up to full height, Yuuri watched the guard with assessing eyes, noting the hulk of his muscled shoulders and the boulders of his fists. He wasn’t deluded enough to believe that he could win. This was always a challenge designed for him to lose. Yuuri was both younger and smaller than this mountain of a man, and they’d been sparring for hours already, though it was more accurate to say that the guard had been knocking him around the entire time. Fresh bruises were purpling across his skin, adding to the patchwork of green-black-blue that his body had become. It wouldn’t be long before he collapsed; he could feel it, even now, in the leaden weight of his limbs.

Still, he needed to try, if only for his own pride. Yuuri knew that any of these men—the ones the _kumicho_ brought to fight—would have been happy enough to beat him to death given half the chance. So he couldn’t let them have it.

They circled each other in a wide arc, the crouch of two wild beasts sans claws and fur. Yuuri was young, yes, but he was quick and spry. The wiry muscles of his ten-year-old body were hard to pin down, slipping through the swing of those meaty hands in nimble twists and turns. It was almost like a _paso doble_ —a chase, and a fight, and a dance all in one. He was the matador, the guard a bull; each sweep of his arm the unfurling of a blood-red cape in his mind’s eye, teasing that hulking mass into a charge. There was a rush of air beside his face as the guard reached out for his throat; Yuuri shifted, ducking underneath the movement, ending up just on the other side of the man. Surprised, the guard turned toward him with graceless limbs slapping into empty space, swiveling on his heels as he did. Seizing the sudden opening, Yuuri sprung himself into action, knocking his body with as much force as it could muster into the back of the guard’s knees. They fell into the rough earth, Yuuri crouching on the guard’s shoulder blades, hands scrabbling for purchase over the smooth black of his suit—his hair—his neck. Yuuri could barely breathe, blood pulsing in every part of him, every bit as frantic as his desperate strikes, pulling and pounding the man’s head into the dirt.

It didn’t last long. An elbow swung up to catch his cheek, knocking him over sideways; he fell hard, the air punching out of his chest. White starbursts bloomed against the backs of his eyes. Dazed, Yuuri couldn’t do anything but lay there and stare up into the dark sky, before it was replaced by the bloodied face of the guard. A heavy body pressed into him from above. Yuuri didn’t bother struggling, the weight of the man’s knees crushing into his ribs, thick hands wrapped around his slender neck. His vision went dark and light at once, the hazy feeling of sleep muting out the rest of the world. All he could focus on was the thin stream of red dripping out of the guard’s now broken nose, like a piece of unspooled thread caught in the horns of a raging bull.

“Enough,” the _kumicho_ said, voice distant as a dream. The weight fell away from Yuuri, just then, and it took him a moment to register the guard being kicked to the side. A sandaled foot nudged at his face, closing the part of his mouth where blood and spittle trickled down to make a pool on the floor. “So you can be taught, then, boy. And here I assumed that your first time was a fluke, but you do have a streak of viciousness inside of you after all.”

Those words caused a shudder to run through him, reminded him of why he was there in the first place. It was his own fault—his viciousness, his violence—blood running in little rivers that followed the lines of his palm—a tide of something dark, dangerous as he hit and hit and didn’t stop hitting. Yuuri turned away from the _kumicho_ in disgust, eyes fluttering shut as the last of his energy deserted him, going boneless on the ground. He didn’t bother fighting when a hand reached down, grabbing a thick chunk of his hair and pulling him up to his knees; the plaintive whine easing out of his bruised throat the only sign of his acknowledgement.

The _kumicho_ continued. “I wondered for a long time what exactly I should do with you: kill you myself or let my men have a go? Perhaps sell you off to the highest bidder, or maybe have you working in one of our clubs where you’d at least pull in a customer or two. Or if I should just send you back in a box to your family, a life for a life.” Yuuri opened his eyes, the man a smear of color in front of him, soft around the edges; it took him a moment to realize that the blurriness was due to his own tears. “I’ve found a better use for you, I think. It’s not so easy to replace a son, but sometimes even a dog will do.” The hand holding his hair loosened and Yuuri dropped into a heap at the _kumicho_ ’s feet. “Whoever you were before this doesn’t matter now. You serve me, you obey me. For the rest of your life, you belong to me.”

 

* * *

 

Yuuri left before dawn. There was a car waiting for him outside, nondescript but clearly expensive, equipped with tinted windows and a heavy black carriage. Viktor left the night before almost immediately after the deal was struck, casually tossing back that he would be sending for Yuuri come morning. Though few were there to witness the exchange, gossip spread like wildfire in the compound and the entire household staff knew of it within the hour. A surprising number of them came to see him off despite the early hour, maids lingering in the hall hoping to catch a glimpse and guards tossing him considering looks from their assigned posts. Minami had come also, bawling his eyes out as he clung to Yuuri’s sleeve, asking why he had to leave so soon after he just got back.

He packed light, a single suitcase containing a few articles of his casual clothes and only the most generic of his suits. If he needed something else, he’d either buy or send for it.

While Yuuri hadn’t expected or wanted the _kumicho_ seeing him off, neither did he anticipate the _wakagashira_ waiting for him by the threshold. The older man looked as ornery as he did last night, the hot spit of anger still edging into his voice. “This deal changes nothing, Katsuki. You’ll leave a dog and come back one, no matter who you’re bending over for.” It was said with an ugly expression, an already wrinkled face twisted into sharp lines.

Yuuri felt his own heart start, stuttering into fury for a split second, but he crushed the emotion underneath the heel of his shoe. “We’re all dogs to him,” he said cooly. “You’re fooling yourself if you think anything else.” Then he saw it, even before the man himself struck, in the flickering of the _waka_ ’s eyes. In an instant, Yuuri reached out to catch the heavily ringed hand just inches away from his cheek. Squeezing the _waka_ ’s wrist until it gave took almost no effort at all, the pulse jumping underneath his fingers even as the man’s fingers slackened. Yuuri let go a moment later and walked out of the compound without another word.

  
The car did not take him east, back to the crowds of Tokyo as Yuuri first anticipated, but rather towards the familiar winding roads leading into Fukuoka. For the second time in as many weeks, he found himself traveling west and closer to home than he had let himself come within the last five years. A sense of reeling, helpless deja vu passed over him when he realized this; his heart yearned, going soft with want at the memory of Mari’s hand clutching his in the dark, and then girding itself in steel remembering the crushed out mess of his father’s.

It was an easy drive. No one came to greet him but the polite, if distant driver at the front seat and he pulled up the partition as soon as Yuuri stepped inside the limousine. The next six hours were spent without a word passing between them, though he would have been heard through the opaque divided if he bothered to speak. A million thoughts whirled around his head. Each left him dizzy, the silence growing thick with expectation as each kilometer peeled away behind them. He needed to clear his head, to think, so he rolled down the rear window and let his head fall back against the wind.

When he woke it was hours later, coming out of his sudden sleep just as the car pulled up in front of a lavish hotel. It was located at the center of the bustling city and so tall he needed to crane his head to see the top of it punching through the grey winter sky. The concierge who met him took up his bag and guided him to a set of private elevators, intended solely for the use of the penthouse suite reserved for him. There was a large sprawl of rooms, fitted with light creamy furnishings and dark woods and golden embellishments all over; half the walls were made of glass, opening up into a rooftop terrace where an outdoor pool and jacuzzi were sunk into the floor, though it was too cold to use either.

It was luxurious—too much by far for a hired hand, he realized—fit for a man like Viktor Nikiforov.

These were his rooms. Of course they were.

Yuuri shuddered at the thought, turning, half-expecting to see the man materialize behind him as if summoned. But there was no one; he stood alone in the empty shell of the suite, his footsteps the first to track over the plush carpets and his hands the first to slide open the doors leading into the terrace. The concierge set his bag down in the sitting room and that’s where Yuuri collapsed, moulding his tired body into the arm of a decorative couch.

He waited, and waited, and waited some more.

By the end of the third day he was still alone, and a buzzing energy was beginning to build up inside his body. It was part annoyance and part anger, to be kept waiting for so long without a word was a sign of the utmost disrespect, but also another part impotence; he could do nothing about it, no matter his displeasure. Yuuri wanted to move, run, release the tension coiled in his muscles. His fingers itched for the recoil of a shot, the two guns in their holsters discreet and heavy, extra ammunition stored in his bag.

Instead he walked, long and leisurely around Fukuoka, reacquainting himself with its overfull streets. He tracked bars and brothels and gambling dens, sought out alleyways and tight corners he could squeeze himself into or out of. He took buses and found trains, figured out the ebb and flow of the crowds. Exhausting that, he came back to the suite and trained, still kipped out on the decorative couch though no one was there to claim the bedroom.

Sit ups. Pull ups. Pushups. Jump kicks. Squats.

The exercises had been pounded into him during those early years and he performed them with precision, his body bending to the muscle memory of it. It helped some—even before he had become the _kumicho_ ’s dog, routine and movement itself settled him, allowed him to focus his anxious energy into something sharp and tangible. Back then it had been skating, or dancing, that centered him; now it was drills.

That was how Viktor found him on the fifth day: Yuuri in the middle of a stretch, his skin dewy with sweat and body suspended in the air, laser-focused on drawing out the last of that buzzing energy in his muscles. He heard the Russian enter, saw him from the corner of his eye, leaning just inside the doorframe to watch Yuuri come down from the mayurasana.†

A beat of silence, then, as Yuuri stood upright. “Impressive,” Viktor said. His voice was cool and smooth as water; one of his fingers tapped out a rhythm on his lips, considering. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting for too long.”

They stared at each other, and the feeling of being picked apart returned to Yuuri in full force. He was suddenly aware of how underdressed he was in comparison to the other man, how vulnerable he was in the thin cotton of his shirt and loose pants—a sharp contrast to the well-fitted ivory suit wrapped in three pieces around Viktor. He tried not to let the waver in his voice show. “Almost a week,” he said, even and measured, “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show.”

“I wanted to see how quickly you’d go running back to your master, if you’d tell him that we’re wasting your time by keeping you here.” Viktor paused, then smiled without any warmth. _I wanted to see who you’d go running to_ , though that went unspoken between them.

“They’re your six months,” Yuuri reminded.

The line of Viktor’s mouth straightened. Humming, he pushed off from the doorframe to wander deeper into the sitting room; he settled finally on an armchair just across from the couch and Yuuri, following his lead, sat too. Separated from Viktor only by the flimsy width of a coffee table and for the first time in full light, Yuuri suddenly wasn’t sure how to act. The roles were less clear, buried already under enough lies to choke them both. So he waited instead, disguising the anxious tick of his fingers by twisting them into his sleeves, restless energy replaced with nerves. His pulse jumped at his wrist, in the same place where Viktor grabbed him some nights before.

“Yes… you’re right. For the next six months you belong to me, don’t you? And I don’t like sharing.” The look Viktor leveled at him was indecipherable—speculative and deep, but at the same time no more effort than he’d give examining the sharpness of a knife. “Whatever orders he gave, whatever plans he’s made—forget them. From this point on until the end of our contract, you report to me first and you tell me _everything_. Do you understand?”

He nodded, unable to say anything through the swell of anger in his throat. The order was simple and one he could follow at the very least. The _kumicho_ hadn’t asked him for anything beyond loaning him out to the Bratva; there were no plans and no contacts, nothing but Yuuri himself, more tool than person at this point and in the service of the one man who he should have been avoiding at all costs since the disaster at Sochi. It was all the same to him. He just needed to keep his head down and get the job done; Yuuri knew that, reminded himself of it, set his eyes on a future that lay just within arm’s reach.

“Minami. What is he to you exactly?” Yuuri’s head shot up. Viktor leaned back in his seat, cool eyes missing nothing. “A father figure? A friend? Perhaps your lover-“

“My boss,” Yuuri said forcefully. _My owner. For now._ “He’s… the _kumicho_.”

“And me. What am I?”

He looked away instead of answering, watching the sky fade into the deep blue of night through the window. When he turned back, Viktor was standing and walking towards him. Yuuri did his best to remain still, not react even as a gloved hand rose to catch him by the chin, tilting his face upwards and closer. The intimacy of the gesture was foreign, unwelcome. His stomach turned, remembering the smell and taste of that leather glove when it was pressed against his lips.

“Get dressed. We’re having dinner with some associates of mine.” Viktor let him go though he didn’t step back far, eyeing Yuuri’s suitcase where it was propped up beside the couch. “Is the suite not to your taste? We can find you another place to stay if you don’t like it here.”

“No!” Yuuri said, then softer, “It’s fine. I’m going to get ready now.”

Dragging his things into the bedroom, Yuuri got dressed in the first suit he pulled out of his luggage. It was one of his older ones—a gentle cut that skimmed over the lines of his body rather than the sharp, severe clothes he had been frequenting during his missions lately. This one was simple, almost nondescript, and he looked strangely ordinary compared to the immaculate composure of Viktor and in the luxury of the penthouse itself. The other man stared at him for a long moment when he came out, then reached up to slick his hair back, toss his tie into a far off corner, and undo the top buttons of his shirt before he was finally satisfied.

Rather than hiring a chauffeur, Viktor drove them through Fukuoka in a flashy black sports car. For a while there was nothing but the sound of the road, a smooth glide of tires on paved street and the quiet purr of the engine; the radio was off and Viktor was mute, had been since they left the hotel. They were stopped at an intersection when Viktor finally broke the silence with a question. “What do you know about Takumi Hisashi?”

“Not much,” Yuuri admitted. “I know that he’s the CEO of a contracting company and that he deals mostly with international clients—no one in Japan will touch him after his drug scandal last year.” That in itself was an understatement. By most standards, Japanese law took a hard stance on the use of illegal substances; the Japanese public even more so.‡ When Takumi Hisashi was caught overdosing in the middle of a drug raid, his career was as good as over. Though his lawyers attempted to keep the story under wraps, the details of the case soon became public knowledge and the media cried out for his immediate resignation. His company suffered and he had lost all his contracts in Japan almost overnight, leaving only his contacts abroad. Yuuri glanced at Viktor from the corner of his eye. “I heard he hates that, hates foreigners.”

“He’s jealous,” Viktor said, locking eyes with him through the rearview mirror. “There’s a party we need to get invited to next week. You’re here to make sure that we are.”

  
The restaurant was French. Beautiful and golden, the main dining room was illuminated by a low-hanging chandelier composed of winking crystals and a warm romantic light. It spilled out over the rich red of the tables and carpet and drapes, like being enveloped in the mouth of a great bloody beast, the color broken only by the stark bone-white uniforms of the waiters as they ferried food and wine to the various guests. The maître d’ was dressed in black and he bowed at the waist, leading them towards the back of the room after Viktor gave his name, telling them that their dining companions had already arrived a short while ago.

Viktor wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him closer as they approached the table. His words were more suggestion than sound against Yuuri’s ear, lips almost touching the curving shell of it. “I’m here as a prospective client tonight. Hisashi will be nervous to make a move, but I hear from Mila that he has a weakness for a pretty face. Especially if it’s on someone else’s arm.”

Takumi Hisashi was not a handsome man. Rather, in all the ways he could be, he was plain. He was middle aged and short and lean, though not in an appealing way. The hair on top of his head was thinning and gray, his suit hung loose even around the widest stretches of him—except for where it curved around his gut, a ring of softness that suggested he drank too much and sat too much to make up for it. There was a bottle of wine already at the table, opened and half gone, that he shared with his two companions. They all stood as Viktor and him approached, Hisashi taking up the lead with a formal bow.

“It’s good to finally meet you in person, Mr. Nikiforov.” Hisashi’s eyes slid over to Yuuri, taking in his face and body, the arm wrapped low and tight around the smallest part of his waist. “I didn’t know you were bringing a guest.”

A look passed over Hisashi’s face, flushed now from more than just the wine, and one not missed by Viktor if the tightening of his arm was anything to go by. Yuuri returned it with a smile. His eyes went half-lidded, inviting, tilting his head in small acknowledgement to the man. “Yes. Where I go, my Yuuri follows.”

Yuuri couldn’t help but shiver, the sensation of Viktor saying his real name running down his spine like the edge of a knife. It was unpleasant, yet not wholly so. The idea of the other man knowing even that much was unsettling, the phrase lifted straight from the _kumicho_ ’s mouth, refitted into Viktor’s—his lips and accent and tongue. Viktor felt that too, apparently, and pressed a kiss into Yuuri’s ear as Hisashi watched.

They all sat down together, Viktor draping an arm over the back of his chair. Yuuri was silent as the four began negotiating the contract, smiling from time to time whenever a question was posed his way. Instead, he focused all his energy on Hisashi. He dedicated every ounce of his presence towards the older man, body angled and gaze intent, letting him catch a flash of white teeth as Yuuri bit into the soft set of his lip. A suggestion, a promise. It didn’t take much. Viktor was right about him; Hisashi had been fixated on his face all night, admiring, save for those few moments when his eyes would dart to the stroke of Viktor’s hand against Yuuri’s shoulder. It turned him on all the more. The idea of fucking someone else’s lover apparently appealed to him more than the prospect of a new client.

The opportunity arrived just as dessert was being served. Yuuri wiped his mouth clean and smiled, excusing himself from the table. He tossed a parting glance back at Hisashi as he did so, before wandering off into a quiet hallway at the back of the main dining room. It wasn’t long before his own footsteps were being echoed by someone louder, more rushed than his own sedate pace. Yuuri turned slightly, casting a long look over his shoulder, and saw Hisashi standing there disheveled and eager. “Hisashi-san,” he greeted.

Hisashi approached and Yuuri fought the urge to step back. “Yuuri,” came the overly hot response, voice almost at a pant and full of want. Yuuri hated this part the most; his skin crawled from it, though he couldn’t do anything but stand there was a hand reached out, pulling him closer by his waist. “Yuuri.” Hisashi’s mouth was a breath away.

At the last second he turned, the sloppy kiss landing wet on his cheek. Another shiver ran through him, this time one of disgust, and again it was mistaken for a sign of desire. This part was always degrading, the paw and press of someone’s hands all over his body. He hated doing it, letting someone touch him no matter how brief. Yuuri was no honeypot; for all his coyness, it had never been more than a superficial act to get closer to his target and strike a killing blow.§ Now, it was something else altogether, a lure, and his body revolted at the very thought. “I can’t,” he demurred as Hisashi tried to kiss him again.

The grip around him tightened until it was just on the cusp of painful. “You’ve been teasing me all night. You don’t get to say _no_.”

It would have been easy to kill him, then, in that moment. Yuuri let himself imagine it: how he’d pry Hisashi’s grip loose, press the knife hidden in his sleeve into the soft flesh of the older man’s gut, muffle the scream with his palm until the thrashing stopped. Or maybe he’d do it tenderly, let Hisashi move closer, head between Yuuri’s own two hands before he snapped his neck.

He did none of that. Yuuri simply tilted his head away once more, hands coming up to rest on Hisashi’s chest to put more space between them both. “Viktor will notice,” he said, an intimate whisper into the man’s ear, “I can’t. But I want to. Just not here, not now.” Something hard rubbing up against Yuuri’s leg, and the sickness he felt earlier multiplied tenfold when he realized what it was. He forced himself to stay still, even as Hisashi pressed into him, crowded him up against the wall.

“Okay,” Hisashi said. He was panting, rubbing himself all along the line of Yuuri’s body like an animal in heat. “Next week. I’ll be hosting a party for the New Year. Come, come with that Russian and I’ll fuck you then. I’ll show you what a man feels like, and I’ll fuck that beautiful mouth of yours then.”

It was only when Yuuri finally nodded that Hisashi released him. The man looked undone, his face red and sweating, the bulge of his half-hard cock unmistakable through his pants. Yuuri felt dirty, intensely so, as if he had just sunk his entire body into a sewage vat. The feeling only grew worse when Viktor saw them return, delighted, playing the oblivious fool as he wrapped his arm around Yuuri again.

“Excellent,” he said after Hisashi extended the invitation, pretending not to notice the pointed look directed at Yuuri. “We look forward to seeing you then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Violence, child abuse, some dubcon-feeling situations at the end. 
> 
> †[Mayurasana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayurasana) or the Peacock Pose is a yoga position where the entire body is suspended parallel to the ground, supported only by the forearms and navel. It tones and strengthens the abdominal muscles, forearms, wrists, and elbows. In this AU, Yuuri ends up taking Yoga because he didn’t have an outlet in either skating or dance! He uses it as both a calming, meditative exercise as well as part of his conditioning routine.
> 
> ‡Japan’s drug laws are fairly strict, and so are its cultural attitudes. In 2015, a Toyota executive was asked to resign after she was accused of transporting controlled prescription medication into Japan via package. There would be a lot of social stigma involved when someone is accused of either using, transporting, or selling drugs so I don’t think it would be too far-fetched if a business would be ruined by something more serious than a few pills. Like, let’s say, forty kilos of cocaine. 
> 
> §A honeypot, in espionage, is a spy that uses seduction and/or sex to get information from a target.
> 
> Uggghhh. Sorry this was late. I was sick on Tuesday so I wasn't able to post! But here's chapter 7. I love Yuuri, I swear; I don't know why I'm being so horrible to him. The mystery of the kumicho's and Yuuri's relationship unfolds (with definitely more to come as the story progresses). The _real_ action is about to start; we do a lot of talking in this fic lmao.
> 
> But because I was late, I'm letting you all in on another fic I have planned: Modern!Pygmalion Viktuuri. (As in the Greek myth, not the play) ;) It won't be for a while but lmao I've grown very attached to the idea. 
> 
> Enjoy and thank you for your continued support! Your kudos, bookmarks, etc. mean everything to me. I love all your comments and I read them often, because you all are so nice and inspire me to write. Updating now on Mondays/Tuesdays. Find me at my YOI blog [witchsbane](https://witchsbane.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat!


	8. Inchoate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inchoate
> 
> 1\. Just begun, and so not fully formed; rudimentary  
> 2\. (In law) Of an offense, such as incitement or conspiracy, anticipating further criminal act

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at end of chapter.

“How would you destroy a man?”

Yuuri started, the question hanging in the air like a piece of overripe fruit. It felt like lifetimes since he’d last seen Viktor, since the dinner and the invitation that followed, and he still had no idea what to make of the man. Viktor dropped him off at the hotel almost immediately after they left the restaurant, not another word spoken between them during the entire ride back. The pleased expression on the Russian’s face seemed to say it all. Yuuri, for his part, had enough sense to wait until he was alone before he let himself fall apart. He scrubbed the remnants of the night off in the steam of a hot shower, standing there until his skin turned red and wrinkled, the sound of his heartbeat drowned out by water on ceramic tile. The feel of it lingered, rankled underneath flesh and muscle and bone.

He never liked it, hated to use his body as collateral, though it was no better than the sins he’d already committed in the name of another man. The disgust was hypocritical, but some part of him was unable to let go of that sick, ugly feeling of shame. It was the last piece of his life that he could still control, that hadn’t been taken from him in the long years of his service under the kumicho. The idea that Viktor Nikiforov could ask—would, inevitably, command—Yuuri to whore himself out for a few scraps of information was almost too much to bear; that he would do it was an awful fact that he couldn’t let himself think about even alone with his own thoughts.

So he hadn’t asked, not about the plan and not about Viktor himself. Yuuri let the silence pour into the air between them instead, basking in the peace of his compulsory drills and the solitary walks he took along the streets of Fukuoka, as if he were just another passing tourist.

The peace didn’t last. Viktor picked him up not two days later in the same black sports car, yet again without warning, and drove them both down to a boutique not far from the hotel. Yuuri needed formal wear for Hisashi’s party and Viktor had taken the liberty of having a suit made, which required a fitting to tailor it to Yuuri’s measurements. Again, the overabundance of silence. Viktor had spoken more words to the tailor over the course of an hour than he had to Yuuri in three conversations, asking for different cuts and colors and fabrics and rejecting everything that was brought out. Yuuri did his best to stand still on the dais as the tailor poked and prodded at him, slipped him into different shirts and shoes and ties, none of them meeting the Russian’s exacting standards.

He wondered what would happen if he did ask. _Why me? What are you planning? What do you really want?_ He knew the bare bones of it, the grudge of a broken promise between the two families that he had planted there himself, but there was something deeper and angrier in Viktor that Yuuri sensed brewing beneath the placid coolness of his smile. He hated that uncertainty more than anything—of being kept in the dark and taken out only when he was deemed useful, treated like an object and ignored otherwise.

That’s why he liked Celestino so much; his ex-handler made him feel more human during their short time together. Celestino was kind when few were. He spoke to Yuuri first like a tutor to his charge, then as a friend as they grew to know each other better. He was the first person that Yuuri had ever unburdened himself to—not fully, never that—but more than he had anyone else since he began. And now he was dead, if not at Yuuri’s hand then because of it, for nothing but his own worthless life.

Of course, he wasn’t expecting anything like that from Viktor Nikiforov.

 _What am I?_ The other man asked, and Yuuri wanted desperately to let loose all the raging words building up in the dam of his throat. _You’re just like everyone else, a monster, just like **him**._ But he swallowed it down, like he did the bitter pill of hypocrisy, and waited for his next orders.

Yuuri took too long to answer the question, evidently, because in the next breath Viktor sighed and stood from his cushioned seat. Through the mirror, he watched Viktor send away the tailor and pick up one of the discarded ties as he walked up to the dais. He spun Yuuri around to face him, fingers catching on the half-done dress shirt draped around his shoulders. “More than killing them, you mean?” Yuuri asked, voice tight as the man’s hand brushed against the dip of his throat, fixing the rest of the buttons into place. The tie was looped around his neck, a slash of blood red against dark fabric, like the maw of an open wound, and knotted intricately at his collar. “Isn’t that why you hired me in the first place?”

“I hired you to destroy the Sungiru Pa,” Viktor corrected. They were standing close together now, a few scant inches apart; Viktor’s hands were still on him, carefully adjusting his tie. It took every ounce of Yuuri’s self-control not to stumble back, press himself up against the furthest wall to open up the distance between them again, turn it into something breathable and safe. “It doesn’t take much to kill someone, Yuuri. Death is easy—and quick.”

“So why do you need me then?”

Viktor proffered up the suit jacket and Yuuri slid into it, shivering at the feel of its cool silk lining that ran the same red as his tie. It was a beautiful outfit: a deep, crushed velvet accented in reds and silvers; cut clean and close to his body. Viktor’s hand followed the line of it down his side, pausing at his hip. The other trailed through his loose hair and pushing it back, away from his face.

Finally satisfied, Viktor turned him around to face the mirrors. He hooked a chin over Yuuri’s shoulder, considering their reflection. “Hisashi is a longtime family friend of the Lees. He’s been laundering money for them for years, probably decades,” Viktor said. His blue eyes were bright. The corners of his mouth turned up in the approximation of a smile, looking more like a great wild beast baring its fangs. “ _You_ , my dear Yuuri, are my ticket into seeing his books. He won’t be able to take his eyes off you.”

 

* * *

 

In theory, the plan was simple: Under the guise of attending the party as Viktor’s lover, Yuuri was to seduce Takumi Hisashi for information on the Lee family’s various international assets in Asia. There was a ledger the businessman kept closely guarded in his own home, detailing the operations the _Geondal_ ran through his contracting company. Under normal circumstances, sending someone in to retrieve it would be nigh impossible; it would take an army to breach the security surrounding his mansion. But as Viktor let him know during the dinner, Hisashi had a particular weakness they could exploit, using the man’s loose lips and freer hands for pretty faces against him.

The reality of it was a bit more complicated than that.

Mila, as he soon learned the red head was called, pushed the dossier into his hands as soon as he and Viktor got back. She was waiting for them in the suite, along with the _avtoritet_ named Georgi. [1] The file wasn’t long; it had been cobbled together over the course of a few days, and the sparseness of it made Yuuri anxious. Back when he worked with Celestino, the handler usually gave him weeks to prepare for an assignment, if not months for an infiltration like this. He’d be provided to the best of Celestino's abilities with blueprints of the house to plan his entry and escape, a full background on the target and the package he was to retrieve, and a chance to build his cover into something that wouldn’t fall apart at the slightest inquiry before he was tossed into the fray.

And a gun at the very least—something small and inconspicuous if he wasn’t able to bring his preferred pair.

He wouldn’t be getting any of that for this assignment. It was a rushed job, and obviously so, if the dangerous entry and the flimsy extraction laid out by the Russians was anything to go by. Whatever Viktor’s endgame was, he was determined to accomplish it within the scant six months he demanded from the _kumicho_ , despite the risks—not only with his life, but with Yuuri’s, and his own subordinates. A knife and a suit were all that stood between them and certain death, and it struck Yuuri again how similar this all was to the circumstances of his failure back in Sochi, and vowed not to make the same mistakes twice.

Yuuri tried not to dwell on it, knew it wouldn’t do him any good. There was no way to prepare himself for what he had to endure in order to survive. He could imagine all too well the balmy skin of Hisashi’s palms roaming his body, the rigid line of that cock pressed against his thigh, the force of his want to get inside, to take. Anxiety coiled tight in his throat and stayed there, winding into itself all the more, again and again whenever Yuuri thought about that last violation.

It stayed with him for the next few days, though, up until the night of the party. Yuuri slipped into the suit in the silence and stillness of his bedroom. He ran his hands over the exquisite material, cut and tailored to fit his measurements so exactly that he looked almost poured into it, from the patent leather of his shoes to the deep valley where his lapels met in a flourish of silvery crystals to the dark velvet draped across his shoulders. In the crimson lining of the suit he tucked in a microphone as thin as a needle, in the shell of his ear the smallest speaker he had ever seen, and in his sleeve the dangerous weight of a butterfly knife.

The last three were courtesy of Mila, who passed them along with the thin dossier. She was coordinating their extraction and would feed him commands via the speaker, once he was separated from Viktor at the party. At the end of the night, if all went as planned, then she would give him directions to the getaway car manned by Georgi somewhere beyond the property.

The line was silent now, and had been since the night the Russians left. They’d been strangely content to leave him to his own devices, with large brackets of time to do anything and talk to anyone he pleased. At the edge of his awareness, Yuuri knew Viktor was having him watched to see if he was contacting the _kumicho_ despite being warned against it, but the man probably knew just as well that if Yuuri were truly determined to send out a message that he wouldn’t catch it.

When it was finally time to leave, a limousine was waiting for him outside the hotel. Viktor was already seated inside, dressed to the nines in an outfit that ran black on black on black. The suit was accented only by the whisper of diamond and gold that was his tie pin, and the glimmering golden buttons on Viktor’s signature leather gloves. He was always wearing them, even in the older photos Yuuri kept in his dossier; they weren’t always the same pair but Viktor’s hands were covered at all times, as hidden in the dead heat of summer as they were in the deep winter. Yuuri had seen him take them off only once, to twist the signet ring from his finger, and remembered the cool touch of skin on skin when it was pressed into his palm. Now he felt nothing but the buttery leather of the glove against his cheek, turning his face from side to side so Viktor could inspect every angle of him, like a piece of art for auction or a pet being judged at a show. Neither of those descriptions seemed too far off from what he was about to do.

Yuuri felt naked beneath the intensity of that gaze, couldn’t help the sigh of relief that blew out of him when Viktor nodded his approval. “You clean up well,” the other man said, sinking back into the comfort of his seat. He was tapping one of his long fingers against his lips, the line of it quirked up at the corner as if amused. “More so than I expected when I first saw you, if I’m being honest.”

“What were you expecting?” He couldn’t help but ask, curiosity pulling the question out of him before he could stop it.

“Someone more intimidating. I was expecting the _Devil of Japan_ , not…” Viktor waved his hand at Yuuri, the gesture somehow capturing perfectly the ambivalence of his tone in a single motion. “I thought Mila had made a mistake. When I first saw you it was quite a—surprise.” _Disappointment_ , is what he heard instead, in the space between those last two words.

Yuuri shrugged, a flush rising up to color his cheeks as both embarrassment and offense ran in tandem through him. "I wasn't trying to be seen."

"Yes, I know that now. I can see why your master keeps you close."

And just like that, the flush on his face bloomed in full. The gentle heat of it blazed into wildfire, creeping up the back of his neck and to his ears, until his entire head was hot with it. Yuuri felt his own expression twist into something ugly and awful, a split second rawness that chased the look of smug satisfaction from Viktor's, before he had enough sense to wipe it clean. Neither of them said anything more for the rest of the ride over, and Yuuri did his best to ignore the burn of Viktor's eyes on him, keeping his gaze locked on the blur of Fukuoka's streets framed by the tinted windows of the limousine.

Unlike the man himself, Hisashi’s mansion was a truly impressive sight. It loomed large even over the other homes in the wealthy neighborhood, and was built in a distinctly Western style that used all sharp corners and glass windows and modern sterility. All around it was a solid stretch of ivy-covered wall, whose gates were thrown open to direct cars up a graveled driveway and towards the main entrance where servants were waiting to greet them.

They weren’t the first ones to arrive; guests were already milling about when they finally made it there and out of the car, admiring the elaborate paper lantern decorations that lit up the threshold. Amongst this crowd, Yuuri spotted inconspicuous guards lining the boundaries of the property—not so many as to impede upon the casual extravagance of the event, but enough to set his teeth on edge as they were led into the front hall.

Viktor seemed to sense this uneasiness because his hand settled firmly into the dip of Yuuri’s spine, the span of his fingers a cage that prevented Yuuri from bolting away from him and the party itself. The smile on the other man’s face felt plastic, like the ever-smiling expression of a doll, sculpted to perfection and hollow on the inside. Yuuri didn’t think his own was any better, though pretending vapid disinterest was far easier than the level of engagement Viktor had to practice.

The guests were all cut from the same cloth: those rich, upperclass elites of Japanese society. Yuuri recognized a few of them on sight, mostly famous celebrities and businessmen, and some he knew not at all but saw in them the same amount of confidence and self-importance as the rest of their company. It would have been more interesting if Yuuri cared at all for high society gossip. Already he’d overheard of some CEO going bankrupt due to a gambling problem they kept hidden from their wife, and the latest in a celebrity scandal involving rehabilitation and drugs.

Mila, at least, was enjoying herself as she listened in to the bits and pieces of Japanese she could understand. Her tinny laugh sounded in his ear through the small speaker, providing a running commentary that was difficult to ignore despite the seriousness of the occasion.

_“They’re all the same in every country! The rich are incredibly unoriginal when it comes to their personal dramas.”_

That, at least, was something they could both agree on. This party was unlike any other Yuuri had ever attended. Glasses of champagne were stacked high on tables, platters of hors d’oeuvres circulated the room carried by unobtrusive caterers; everyone glittered in beautiful gowns and suits.

When Yuuri was younger, the New Year was always a time to bring together their closest friends and family at the onsen. The celebration was small and lively, an intimate way to ring in the coming month and a fresh start. The adults passed around warm bottles of sake and giant plates of mochi were laid out on every available surface, filling the air with the comforting smells of home. Yuuri wondered vaguely if his father was out of the hospital already, and if his family was sitting at the table right now surrounded by Minako and the Nishigoris and the regulars at the onsen. He wanted to be there too, with them, to hear his father’s cheerful drunken laugh and to lay his head down on the steady strength of Mari’s shoulder as she smoked. They’d be getting ready for _Shōgatsu_ in the morning; his mother would have laid out offerings on their family shrine, unpacked the kimono from storage that they would wear to the temple. He wondered what they would wish for during their visit, if they thought of him in the same breath as they prayed to ease off their debts and ward off bad luck. †

It was another hour before they finally saw Hisashi. Viktor spotted him first, grip tightening around Yuuri's waist to pull his attention away from another guest and towards the foot of the grand staircase. The man was holding court at the center of a large group of other businessmen and their various younger dates; they were all laughing too loud at something Hisashi said, and he preened under the attentions of the crowd and of the woman clinging to his arm. She was pretty, slender and half his age and shooting him sultry looks beneath the dark spread of her lashes. It didn't look like Hisashi was taking his eyes off her anytime soon.

"You have some serious competition tonight," Viktor whispered into his ear, tone just a shade of mocking, "Should we go make the rounds?" Before Yuuri could say anything, he was already being led away and they were soon standing at the outer edge of the circle. Viktor cut into the crowd effortlessly, confidently. They parted for him, as if the space was owed, as if it was his due by the very fact that he demanded it. With a flashing smile, he greeted the host. "Hisashi! Thank you for inviting us.”

"Mr. Nikiforov!" Hisashi looked startled then, enough that he jerked his arm away from the woman, offering it up for an eager handshake. "Thank you! Thank you! I hope you're enjoying the party?”

"Yes. My Yuuri was just admiring your beautiful home—you have wonderful taste."

For the first time that night, Hisashi looked at him. But this time, his gaze didn't linger; it darted quickly back to Viktor as though that split second alone stung. Viktor's arm curled around him tighter and still, it did nothing. Yuuri couldn't help the slight swell of disappointment that rose inside him, despite his own reluctance to go through with the plan, and it warred with the overwhelming relief he felt knowing Hisashi had gotten bored with him. He wanted to leave it like that, to let himself fade out of the other man's interest. But he couldn't, not when there was so much at stake. Yuuri reminded himself that it was only his pride and crushed the feeling of shame underfoot, focused only on what needed to be done in front of him.

 _He’s jealous_ , Viktor had said. _He’ll be nervous to make a move but he has a weakness for a pretty face._

There was music playing in a far off corner of the room—something with a fast tempo, on strings—and suddenly Yuuri knew what to do.

He turned in Viktor’s hold, reaching up to press his hand against the other man’s chest. “Dance with me,” he breathed out. Viktor’s mouth went slack for a single beat; it was almost like he’d been caught off guard, but Yuuri didn’t have time to second guess his own course of action. Instead, he let his body melt into the embrace, his mouth hot against the skin of Viktor’s neck as he spoke. “ _Viktor_ , dance with me.” From the corner of his eye, he saw Hisashi look at them both with a renewed intensity.

Thankfully, Viktor seemed to understand and swept him out towards the dance floor, with a half-hearted apology to their host. Yuuri moved into position, fitting himself into the empty spaces left by Viktor’s body. Their hands were clasped, connected from palm to elbow, their chests and hips separated only by a breath. Yuuri felt his heart stutter. A dance between the two of them—his body still remembered how that felt the last time, though it was world’s apart from what they were doing now. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Viktor said, leaning down to murmur into Yuuri’s ear.

_I really don’t._

And then there was no time to think.

Viktor led him into the first steps of a Viennese Waltz with a hard tug that nearly stole the breath from his lungs. They moved together, fluid, like before, their bodies in sync. A step out and then a turn and then a rotation, their steps telegraphed only by the smallest of shifts in their arms. He could feel all the lean muscles of Viktor’s thighs where their hips and legs brushed against each other, the leonine grace with which he maneuvered Yuuri into his flourishing spins across the floor. The details of the room went soft, blurred around the edges with how fast they turned and turned and turned about the room. It was hard to keep up, hard to take in air.

Yuuri didn’t know how long they danced, only that the music had changed—at least once, twice—before they finally slowed to a stop at the edge of the dance floor. He was breathing hard and so was Viktor, their arms still wrapped around each other like the climbing ivy on the walls outside.

Viktor was staring down at him, a complicated look in his eyes that Yuuri couldn’t quite decipher, and opened his mouth as if to say something. “That was-“

“Mr. Nikiforov!” Hisashi called out from the periphery, breaking the moment. Yuuri turned to face him, but found that he wasn’t able to twist out of Viktor’s grip. “That was a beautiful dance! No one could look away from you.” This he directed at Yuuri, the leer reserved for his date earlier transposed fully onto him. “Perhaps I could steal your partner for a dance or two?”

There was silence, stretching awkwardly between them for a second too long, before Viktor said, “Of course.” Yuuri felt more than saw the arms unwind themselves from his waist as the Russian stepped back, leaving him with Hisashi to dance the next song.

“Shall we?” Hisashi asked, but didn’t wait for Yuuri to respond, pulling him back to the center of the room in a close hold. The music began playing the tune for another waltz—slower this time, and less elegant than the one he previously danced with Viktor. Hisashi moved in the textbook way he had been taught; he was a good enough lead yet seemed willing to drag Yuuri along the steps whenever they misread each other, all take and no give. Yuuri smiled and bore it, hoping the expression on his face reflected none of the uneasiness churning in his gut. “You look good enough to eat,” Hisashi said. His hand found its way down Yuuri’s back, settling just above his hip where it clenched possessively. “I can’t wait to get you on your knees, can’t wait to fuck you.”

 _“Now’s your chance to get him alone,”_ Mila said through the speaker. Years of practice kept Yuuri from jumping out of his skin, having forgotten she was listening in on the other side, somewhere far away from the party. He hummed so she knew he was listening.

Yuuri leaned in so his mouth was only a few centimeters away from his dance partner’s ear; one of his hands found its way to Hisashi’s neck, cupping the back of his head to draw him in close. “So impatient,” he murmured, voice soft and full of heat, “But not here, Hisashi-san. Take me somewhere private. I can get quite… loud.” Against his palm a cool sweat broke out on the other man’s skin, and in addition to the flush rising in his cheeks, it made Hisashi look like he had a bit too much to drink that night.

Hisashi fumbled as the dance came to an end, his hands drifting down to hold Yuuri’s hips still. A lump formed in Yuuri’s throat. “Come with me, upstairs,” Hisashi said, stumbling over his words in his impatience, “There’s an office, my office. I’m going to fuck you over my desk. I’m going to show you what it feels like to be with a real man.”

Yuuri nodded, stepping back, his heart hammering in his chest. He couldn’t tell if it was from adrenaline or disgust. Possibly both. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll make my excuses and meet you in the hall.”

_“Good job. I’ll be on standby.”_

Hearing Mila’s voice made him feel even worse. To know that she was listening in while Hisashi said those things to him, that she’d be across the line when he made those fantasies a reality—that was a humiliation that nearly had him shutting down, his heart caught somewhere between coming out of his chest and stopping still entirely. He hadn’t thought about that when they were first planning this mission.

Yuuri was pale by the time he slid back against Viktor’s side, almost limp when the Russian’s arm encircled his waist again. He spoke quietly, nose pressed into the collar of Viktor’s suit. “He took the bait. I’ll be meeting him upstairs in ten minutes.” The tremor in his throat was poorly disguised; he was almost positive Viktor heard it anyway.

His emotions refused to settle down by the time he managed to slip away, following a few paces behind Hisashi as the man wandered deeper into his own home. The music and chattering began to fade away behind them, and so did the dazzling lights of the dance floor, the halls emptied of people as they left the celebration altogether. For a while it was just the two of them, the sound of Yuuri’s footfalls gentle against the carpets and Hisashi’s heavier gait impatiently rushing towards their final destination.

The office was located at the end of a long, dark hallway. Hisashi unlocked the heavy mahogany doors leading into the large room and pulled Yuuri through, eager, pawing at him almost as soon as the wood slammed shut behind them. Yuuri gasped when he was shoved back hard, his back meeting the solid frame with enough force to knock the air out of him in surprise. Hisashi’s hands landed first at his waist, then hips, then just roamed up and down his sides, unable to decide where they wanted to settle, squeezing every now and again.

Everywhere Hisashi touched burned, ran red hot with shame. Yuuri tried to shove it all out of his mind, separate himself from the moment and imagine this as just any other role he had to play. But he found that he couldn’t. All he could feel was the too real weight of a body crowding him into the door, a hardness rutting up against his thigh through his suit. Yuuri was breathing harshly, gulping in an atmosphere’s worth of air through his lungs. His vision was going spotty as bursts of black tore into the scene in front of him—himself and Hisashi and the lead up into one of the worst moments of his life. It was almost as if he had stepped out of his body, watching himself and the way his face slackened, went blank as he fell back against the wood. Helpless.

_Not now, not now._

He felt smothered under the gravity of his own discomfort, a crushing sensation against the inside of his chest as his heart jackhammered his ribs into dust.

_Focus, focus. For them, this is for them, for your family._

A wet mouth slid up his neck, a hot tongue tasting him, sucking a bruise into his jaw.

Yuuri gasped, shoving Hisashi away. The darkness creeping on the edges of his sight began to recede as he came back to himself, settling back into his body like it belonged to him again. The spot on his jaw ached, already swelling from a bite left there by a hungry mouth. “W-wait, wait…”

_“Ace? What happened, Ace?”_

“What the fuck?” Some of his hair had fallen into his eyes, and through the mess of it Yuuri looked up to see Hisashi’s angry scowl. “Listen, you little whore, you don’t get to do this to me. Do you know who I am?”

_“Ace, respond. Is the mission compromised?”_

Yuuri shook his head, then remembered that Mila couldn’t see it. Gathering the last shreds of his composure, he stood up from where he was slumped against the door. He straightened the ruined lines of his suit, pushed back the fall of his hair away from his face. He breathed in deep and ignored the way it rattled in his chest, like wind through an empty house. “I know exactly who you are, Hisashi-san. But there’s no need to rush.” In his voice he poured in every ounce of heat, in his body seduction. Yuuri pushed off from the door, reaching out to tuck his hand beneath the jacket of Hisashi’s suit, wrapping it around his tie. “Don’t you want to take your time with me?”

If his voice shook then neither Hisashi nor Mila chose to comment on it. This was simply a cheap ploy to delay the inevitable, but Yuuri could pinpoint the exact moment that it worked. Hisashi swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in the low light of the room, and Yuuri lifted his hand to trace the curve of it. When he stepped back and around, Hisashi followed him as if in a trance.

For the first time, Yuuri took stock of the office. A row of large French windows provided the only light in the room, lining the furthest wall from the double doors and curtained by rich folds of red and gold that took on even more depth in the shadows. A large Kashmir rug sprawled over most of the floor space, leading up to a marbled fireplace and mantle; over that was a lavish tapestry with an image he couldn't make out. Paintings hung all around the office, along with various artifacts in glass displays. Hisashi's collection ranged anywhere from antique weaponry to illustrated scrolls—most of them Japanese in make—looking more like they belonged in a museum than a home. Several plush armchairs were strewn around the room, including a sofa pushed up against one wall. And finally, there was a large desk that was at the far edge of the room, piled high with papers, the sole reason Yuuri was here.

_Time, I just need a little more time. Then I'll be ready._

"It's cold in here, don't you think?" Yuuri said abruptly, spinning on his heel. He watched Hisashi move towards him in the dark, wary, and couldn't help the exhalation of relief when the older man turned off-course to head in the direction of the fireplace. There was a slow tick and a following hiss as the gas clicked on; the warm light of a roaring fire flooded the room, almost romantic if Yuuri weren't all too aware of what he was supposed to do next. Of what he had to do.

 _"Ace,"_ Mila hissed in his ear, _"what are you doing?"_

He ignored her, pacing around the office instead. It was a cat-and-mouse game between the two of them: Yuuri would linger in one spot, letting Hisashi come close enough to touch, an elbow or an arm or a hand, before spiriting himself away just on the edge of getting caught. His pulse raced, that awful weight on his chest getting heavier and heavier with every second he delayed; Hisashi was getting impatient, anticipation souring into anger. But he needed more time.

"You have a beautiful collection here," he said. His fingers touched one of the display cases, the cool surface soothing to his overheated skin. There was a dagger in this one, molten in the light of the fire. He heard more than saw Hisashi approach from behind, and moved until he was on the other side of the room, in front of another case. This one contained a large, antique hand scroll with watercolored figures fucking on the page. "And very expensive tastes."

When Hisashi caught him this time, he was ready. Yuuri stilled as the other man's hands gripped him about the waist, pulling him into Hisashi's hips. He was already hard, rubbing himself against the curve of Yuuri's ass. His breath was noxious and hot and tinged with alcohol on Yuuri's face. "That one's new," the man grunted, distracted now that he had his prize. "It was a gift from the _chankoro_.” [2]

One beat, then two, before he pulled away once more. Yuuri tried not to show how badly he was shaking, how much he wanted to rip away the skin everywhere he'd been touched. He walked backwards until he hit the desk, resting his palms on the flat of it; his entire body was an inviting lean and he could almost see the way Hisashi's eyes dilated, going hyper focused.

"You do a lot of business with the Chinese?" He didn't know how long he could keep talking. Mila made a displeased noise over the speaker.

"When it suits me." Hisashi had apparently run out of patience; he stalked towards Yuuri, hands slamming down on either side of his body, caging him in against the desk. He rolled his shoulders, the movement violent and jerky. "That one was a gift. I'm helping them with some cargo that needs to be shipped out to Russia.”

 _"Wait!"_ He jumped at the sound of Mila's voice snapping in his ear. _"Keep him talking. What cargo? To where?"_

Talking—he could do talking.

"A gift? Sounds pretty important if they're giving you something like that just to ship something out." Hisashi was mouthing at his neck in the same place as before; the bruise there throbbed with another bite. "You must be," he gasped in pain, his back shoved forcefully into the desk, "really amazing."

Flattery always worked. Yuuri almost laughed out loud when Hisashi pulled away, preening, looking like the cat that caught the canary. "I'm very important," he slurred, his hands still groping, "Even the _chankoro_ think so. They know that Japan is superior! Our people, our companies! Our guns—that's what they want from us, you know? Just one of ours is better than a hundred of theirs combined."

 _"Guns? To Russia?"_ Mila sounded alarmed.

Yuuri couldn't blame her. He steadied himself, pressing a palm to Hisashi's chest. "You do look like a man who knows the meaning of quality," he agreed, "Still, it sounds dangerous."

"It's fine, it's fine," Hisashi said. He leaned in for a proper kiss. "I invited them here tonight, actually..."

_“Shit. Get out of there. Yuuri, get out of there now. Find Viktor, fuck, find him! He needs help-“_

**_BRINNNGGG, BRINNNGGG, BRINNNGGG_ **

A cellphone rang. Hisashi swore, fishing the device from his pocket, still close enough for Yuuri to smell the alcohol on his breath when he answered. _"Sir, we have an emergency,"_ the voice across the line said frantically, barely heard over the litany of screams, _"Some of the guests—they've started shooting. We don't know who shot first-"_

"What? What the fuck am I paying you for? Find out who it is!" Hisashi was red in the face, screaming into the speaker. He pushed off Yuuri and stormed over to the other side of the room.

Mila was still talking, a steady stream of cursing in both Russian and English. _"It's the Triad—one of them recognized Viktor. They're friendly with the Koreans, and one of them opened fire in the ballroom. Дерьмо́, you have to find him, quick. Hisashi's guards are also looking.”_

But he hadn’t found what he was looking for yet. There wouldn’t be another chance like this; the ledger was here, somewhere, if only he had the time.

Yuuri looked around for anything that he might use to buy a few extra minutes inside the office but there was nothing—unless he wanted to outright kill Hisashi, that is—except the tapestries and scrolls and ornaments on the wall. It wouldn’t be long before Hisashi got himself together and dragged them both out to see what was happening, or one of the guards came searching for them, or his own cover was blown because Viktor managed to get himself shot by the Triad. The other man was shouting into the receiver of his phone still, but that wouldn’t last long as a distraction, and Yuuri needed to do _something_ before the mission slipped out of his hands.

Warm light flickered in the corner of his eye and, suddenly, he knew what to do.

There was no time to hesitate, only act. Yuuri grabbed one of the irons by the fireplace and stuck it into the hearth, dislodging one of the burning logs from the grate; it tumbled out of place, crackling and spitting embers, and rolled onto the floor and into the Kashmir rug. It made a lot of noise as it went down, but it was already too late by the time Hisashi whipped around to see what was going on. Fire tore through the room, leaping up between the two of them as the blaze gorged itself on the fibers of the rug, catching onto the curtains and wooden floors beneath with a speed that surprised even him. It took less than a minute until Hisashi disappeared completely in a cover of black smoke, his shouting suffocated by the heat and snap of flame, allowing Yuuri to return to the task at hand.

He tried not to dwell, or panic, and rushed back to the desk to search for anything that might be useful. Mila was still shouting something into the speaker but he was too focused on the fire to pay much attention, watching it from the corner of his eye to see that it didn’t get too close. His breathing was labored already, and he knew that staying there for much longer meant certain death, so he looked through the papers and drawers as quickly as possible.

Nothing.

Yuuri growled low in his throat, the sound turning into a cough halfway through, as he pulled open another drawer. It came out of the desk completely in his frustration, nearly knocking him back in surprise. The fire crept closer. And then—the bottom of the drawer fell out, and along with it a thick leather-bound ledger onto the floor.

“I found it,” he rasped out into the microphone, though Mila had no hope of hearing it. He thumbed through the pages and caught a few stray words here and there, and numbers, and countries. But there was no time to celebrate; the desk went up in flames, reminding him of how close to death he still was, and he stumbled back and away from the heat. The doors were already blocked. Hisashi was gone completely, possibly burning just on the other side of the room. Yuuri looked for another way out, his heart beating so hard that he was sure he’d find a bruise there come morning, if he made it till morning.

 _No hesitating,_ he told himself, before he shouldered into the French windows and into the cool night air of the balcony. The flames leapt up behind him, following him out to breathe and grow. Yuuri hurled himself over the edge, fingers barely catching on the railing, and the drop sent his stomach up into his chest and knocked into his heart. For a split second he flashed to the fall—he thought about the pain of his snapped legs as he hit the ground, the heat of a burning world as it came down around him—and then his feet caught the wall, and he smashed through a window and into the floor below. He choked on his own spit, rolling, barely feeling the glass as it cut into his suit and skin.

 _“Ace? Yuuri, are you still there? Answer me.”_ Mila’s voice was clearer now. The ledger was hot in his hands.

“I’m here,” he said, “I found it.” All he wanted to do was lay down on that floor for the rest of his life, heedless of the shards of glass and wood surrounding him. Instead he got up, pushing the pain away to some other place for him to deal with later, when this was all over. “Mila, what’s happened to Viktor? Is he okay? Still alive?”

 _“I don’t know. I think… maybe. His mic gave out ten minutes ago, but he was still fighting then,”_ she sounded scared, her voice wavering for the first time that night, _“He won’t go down without a fight. He has to be alive—he has to.”_

“I’ll find him.”

He nodded, more for himself than her, and stumbled out of the room. The hallway was oddly quiet, even though other parts of the house were surely in chaos, shrouded in the dark. It took him a few odd turns to find the nearest staircase, trying to find his way back to familiar territory without running into any guards, when he heard the muffled sounds of a struggle not far off. Yuuri tucked the ledger into his waistband and whipped out the butterfly knife from his sleeve, steeling himself, muscles tensed as he approached what sounded like a fight.

There was a gunshot, then the sound of a body hitting the floor. Yuuri’s heart almost stopped, starting again only when the fight continued. It wasn’t over yet—whoever was fighting was still alive, and it could only be one person.

It was difficult to tell at first glance what was happening when Yuuri peered around the corner. There were four people standing, three with their backs towards him and another taking cover in an alcove, and one bleeding and dead on the floor. The silver of Viktor’s hair glimmered in the dark, and so did the gun in his hand, and the ones in the hands of the men cornering him.

Viktor saw him first, nodding his head almost imperceptibly when Yuuri pressed a finger to his own lips. He crept out from the corner in complete silence, quick as a shadow, trying not to break the standoff in the corridor lest he get himself shot in the process. The first man dropped when Yuuri’s knife found a home in the back of his skull, to his dying breath unaware of what just transpired. The other two spun to face him, shocked, but they were too slow to react. Yuuri snatched one man’s arm, hoisting it up into the air just as the trigger of his gun was pulled, the bullet hitting only the plaster of the ceiling. His elbow caught the other one in the throat. Knife spinning, Yuuri thrust the sharp end of it into the man’s jugular and felt the blood pump out from the wound in violent spurts. The last man struggled, kicking out at him in blind panic, so Yuuri twisted his arm and forced him down onto his knees, wrapped his hands around the man’s head and twisted. The sharp crack of it ended the fight, the now limp body slipping down to the floor with only the smallest of twitches.

It only took a minute, maybe a little more.

When Viktor finally stepped out, it was with a look on his face that Yuuri had never seen before—a seismic shift in expression centered around the slightest crease between his brows—small, and the most honest he’d ever shown. Yuuri grabbed a gun from the floor and looked him over, noticing the pronounced limp in his right leg and the way he cradled his side. Viktor wasn’t bleeding much at least, just a few scrapes here and there, but they wouldn’t be moving very fast. “I found him,” he said into his mic, and Mila breathed out a sigh of relief. Then, to Viktor, “Can you walk?”

As soon as Viktor nodded they were on the move. Yuuri led them down the staircase, pressing close to the wall to avoid the notice of any more guards. He was lucky that last time, and so was Viktor, but he couldn’t count on it again if they wanted to live through the night, let alone escape. They climbed out the nearest window when they reached the ground floor, rounding the side of the mansion until the wall and iron gates were in plain sight. Outside was chaos, as Yuuri had earlier predicted. Men and women ran scared across the yard, tracking mud and ash in their beautiful gowns and suits, the fire roaring out of the open entryway like the burning tongue licking its way out of a dragon's mouth. The guards were letting no one through, barring the way to the street with their strong bodies and stronger guns. Even if they both managed to slip unnoticed into the crowd, they wouldn’t be able to get out, not with the ledger in their possession and with their lives intact.

He was debating on the chances that Viktor would be able to climb a wall when he saw it from the corner of his eye, making its slow way down the graveled driveway. It was a car, sitting low on the ground and heavy enough that it might have been armored, waiting on someone approaching from the other end of the yard. Hisashi had survived, just barely, looking worse for wear. Yuuri nudged Viktor’s uninjured side, nodding towards the car. “Get ready to move.”

Not bothering to give an explanation, Yuuri moved, pulling Viktor along as they ran to the car. The smoke provided them some cover—another lucky break—and they came around to its side with little difficulty. Yuuri let Viktor go, striding up to the car window, and without preamble shot into the driver’s side twice, shattering the glass. The driver fell into the steering wheel, lifeless. He opened the door and let the body slump into the dirt, turning to Viktor with a growled out, “Get in,” before diving into the driver’s seat himself. The guards had noticed something wrong, finally, and Viktor turned to him in the passenger seat. “Put your seatbelt on.”

“What are you planning?” Yuuri didn’t answer, instead reaching over to buckle the other man in himself, then put both hands on the steering wheel and floored it.

Alarmed shouts rang throughout the courtyard. Bodies threw themselves out of the way of Yuuri’s relentless driving, a straight line towards where they needed to go; he heard shots firing in the distance, but they were moving too fast to hit accurately. The line of guards standing at the gates hadn’t buckled, still blocking the way, but Yuuri paid them no mind. He sped up, knowing that they’d break before long, the risk of getting run down more dire than the anger of their boss, and he was proven right when they dived out of the path at the very last second.

When they hit the gates, the impact was so loud it sounded more like a peal of thunder in a storm raging just overhead. There was a creak and a groan, and the sound of his own breathless gasp dying in his throat, and for a moment he truly believed that they’d stopped moving before the iron finally gave way and let them out into the street. Beside him, Viktor was laughing and drunk on exhilaration, leaning out the now shattered window to throw off a few shots behind them.

“Mila, I need directions,” he said into the mic. It was a wonder that it was still working, that the speaker in his ear hadn’t been dislodged. “What’s the fastest way to get back into the city—give me main streets.” She rattled off something in his ear and he followed it, blood pumping with adrenaline as the roads unfolded in front of their battered car. They were being chased already, two black dots in the distance, marked periodically by the flashing of their headlights.

Yuuri was no getaway driver, but it was the New Year, and he had spent the last few days wandering Fukuoka with the hours he had to himself so the city was fresh in his mind. As soon as he got into a more populated area of the city, he veered off course, merging in and weaving out of traffic in the same motion. Cars honked at him but he didn’t slow down, making seemingly random turns and going back into streets they’d already driven down in messy patterns. He couldn’t shake the two cars following them, not fully, but they were far enough away that he could risk switching cars. “Let your _avtoritet_ know that we’re on our way. Three minutes, keep the engine running.” They screeched into a stop down a nondescript street, and Yuuri spotted Georgi’s distinctive hair down the block. Viktor stumbled out of the car first, reaching out to clasp the other Russian’s arm in his, greeting him. “There’s no time for that. We need to move,” he said.

Both men turned to look at him, and Yuuri would have flushed in embarrassment at giving such a command on any other day, if he weren’t already too tired and keyed up from the pursuit. As it was, Georgi only nodded in agreement. “You and the _Pakhan_ take this car. I will take yours and draw them off you for as long as I can.” [3] When it looked like Yuuri was about to object, he held his hand up, stopping the words before they even came out. “I have done this before. These aren’t my streets, but Mila will be my eyes and that is almost as good.”

There was no time to argue, so Yuuri let himself into the driver’s seat of the new car, Viktor following him on the other side. It was a plain model, indistinguishable from the others lining the street, save for the passenger bleeding beside him. Yuuri watched Georgi drive away, for a moment admiring the graceful turn of the car down the street in a move he knew only an experienced getaway driver could make, and felt a little better at leaving the other man with two vehicles still on his tail. He didn’t move until the danger had passed, didn’t breathe until they returned to the thick of Fukuoka’s street traffic where they became part of the celebrating crowd, awash in a sea of other cars and people surging all around them.

It took another thirty minutes of clear driving before Yuuri’s muscles finally unwound, the tension dropping off his shoulders and arms until he was almost melted into his seat. They were stopped at an intersection, waiting for pedestrians to cross the street, when he finally pulled off the microphone still tucked into the lining of his suit and tossed it into the glove compartment; the speaker he kept on, just in case Mila had something else to say. He chanced a look at Viktor through the rearview mirror, only to see the man already staring at him, had been doing so wordlessly for a long while.

Throat tacky and hands shaking, he pulled the ledger from his waistband, tossing it into Viktor’s lap. He watched Viktor’s hand curl over it and scratch over the leather, as if trying to figure out whether or not it was really there; his gemstone eyes were still fixed on Yuuri, unwavering, something messy inside them when before it was only ice.

“You saved my life,” Viktor said to break the quiet.

“It’s my job.”

Yuuri turned back to the road, the green of the stoplight flashing for him to go. The air-conditioning felt good on his overheated skin, cooling the sweat that stuck his clothes to his body, making him feel less grimy and bloodstained. He smelled like smoke—he could tell that now, in the clean interior of the car—and he was desperate to get back to the place he was rapidly coming to think of as _his_ suite, to get into the shower and wash the remains of the night off his skin.

He didn’t want to think about it, about any of it. These were only the first of the many casualties coming in the next six months, a tide of blood enough to fill a deep trench cut into the belly of the earth. Yuuri could still feel Hisashi’s hands wandering over him, the wet heat of his mouth as it sucked a bruise into his neck.

“It is,” Viktor agreed, “But you could have also easily left me for dead. And you got _this_.” He held up the ledger in the rearview mirror, finally acknowledging its existence. “You have… exceeded my every expectation, Yuuri.” And the way he said Yuuri’s name was different now, too. It lacked the calculating edge that had been there before, earning a new texture and depth as it rolled out of Viktor’s mouth; it wasn’t warm, not even close, but richer. _With umami,_ as his mother might have said, and he almost laughed and cried with longing. “I owe you my life.” They were at another intersection and Yuuri turned to face him, locking eyes directly for the first time since their dance earlier that night. “How can I repay you?”

Involuntarily, his hand reached up and sought the tender spot at his jaw. Viktor’s gaze darted to the motion. It was strange—every part of Yuuri’s body ached, but it was that single bruise that had him wishing he could tear it out of his skin, as if the pain of such a thing would be better than having to keep that mark on him. Bells began to ring outside, people cheered, traffic stopped as the city ushered in the New Year. Yuuri swallowed hard, the words already bubbling out of his throat before he could push them down. “Never again,” he rasped out, not sure if Viktor understood, if he’d even listen, his own fingers pressing into the ache, “Never again.”

But against all odds, Viktor reached out, meeting him where he was. He touched that same spot with his gloved hand, repeating emphatically, “Never again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Dubious consent in sexual situations; graphic depictions of violence; murder; guns. 
> 
> [1]Avtoritet are the brigadiers of the Russian mafia, the captain in charge of a small group of men and pay tribute to the boss. 
> 
> [2]Chankoro is a derogatory term, used by the Japanese to refer to Chinese people. Meaning “Qing dynasty’s slave”. 
> 
> [3]Pakhan is the leader of the Russian mafia. As a sign of their allegiance and loyalty, Viktor’s direct subordinates address him as such even though technically, in this story, Yakov is still alive and head of the Feltsman Bratva. 
> 
> †Shōgatsu (正月): The Japanese New Year festival, celebrated between December 31st and January 4th of each year. It has its own specific traditions such as eating traditional food like mochi, ringing bells at midnight, and going to visit temples alongside the typical events like parties. Since Yuuri’s family runs a bathhouse, I think of them as celebrating the more traditional aspects of the New Year! Also I love to imagine Yuuri in a kimono. 
> 
> I'm sorry this took so long. I had to rewrite this a few times because it just didn't feel right/satisfying. By the time I liked it, it was already Wednesday night. Lmao so please enjoy! I hope it lives up to expectation. It's almost 10k words so there's that?????
> 
> Enjoy and thank you for your continued support! Your kudos, bookmarks, etc. mean everything to me. I love all your comments and I read them often, because you all are so nice and inspire me to write. Updating now on Mondays/Tuesdays. Find me at my YOI blog [witchsbane](https://witchsbane.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat!


	9. Accord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Accord
> 
> 1\. Give or grant someone (power, status, or recognition)  
> 2\. An official agreement or treaty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at end of chapter.

The heat of that Sicilian summer was oppressive. According to the _Palermitani_ , it was the hottest on record in a number of years. Temperatures soared and turned the air hazy, shimmery, as it drew water from out the earth itself. Yuuri was no stranger to heat—Hasetsu had never been kind in those warm months following the greenery of spring, even as close to the ocean as they were, when the onsen held about as much appeal as sitting on the inside of a bamboo steamer like a particularly savory dumpling.

It was Yuuri’s first time in Italy. By all rights he should have been enjoying himself in the aged beauty of the countryside, but all he could think about was flying straight back to the familiar shores of Japan. He was young, just turned seventeen, and had only a handful of experiences abroad with none of them having been anywhere nearly as scenic. In another life he might have been grateful for this opportunity, standing in the ruins of _Solunto_ and overlooking a field of terra cotta rooftops running all the way to the Mediterranean, perhaps fresh off an international competition or simply traveling before his final year of high school began without worrying about the upcoming stress of entrance exams. At seventeen, life was always so precarious no matter who you were, but those pressures would have been far gentler and more forgiving than the ones he found himself facing now. 

When Celestino approached the _kumicho_ with a request from one of his old contacts in Sicily, no one had expected it to be from a surviving member of the Crispino Famiglia. Like the rest of the world, they all believed that the entire household perished in the fire and knew without a doubt who paid to have it done. Though the _kumicho_ himself felt little about an internal feud brewing within the Cosa Nostra, he saw in that moment an opportunity to expand the fledgling guns-and-drugs ring the Minami-kai had been operating out of Kyushu and Kobe with the money they were offering. Yuuri didn’t know what to think.

For Celestino, the endeavor was far more personal. Though he had left the Cosa Nostra before the twins were born, his history with their parents was a long one; time had not diminished his sense of loyalty to the Crispino Famiglia, despite striking out on his own as a younger man, and he mourned deeply when news of their murder reached America. Yuuri worried about him, watched as Celestino’s perpetual cheer fade under the strain of sleepless nights and missed meals, as the man wandered in a daze during those first few weeks after the announcement. The two of them almost came to blows when the anger finally hit, Celestino finally allowing himself to feel something beyond the black cloud of his grief, only to replace it with the grim determination to carry out his friends’ vendetta. Reasoning with him became pointless, so overcome was he with grief, that Yuuri had to watch him constantly for days on end to ensure that his handler didn’t fly off to Italy on a whim and get himself killed. 

Then the request arrived, seemingly from beyond the grave, via a courier bearing Sara Crispino’s letter and her Famiglia’s signet ring. Yuuri couldn’t refuse once his handler begged him to take the job—one Celestino would have likely accepted himself if he were not so close to the family and ten years off the field. It was either that, or face the very real possibility of losing his only friend and mentor, and Yuuri was just selfish enough to let that fear decide for him.

That didn’t mean he stopped wanting to run; now, more than ever, he wanted to leave it all to the wind and whisk his family away to some place safer than Hasetsu. What Sara Crispino was asking of him was both tremendous and horrifying, in every sense David versus Goliath. It was an act tinged with the kind of madness only the truly desperate could think—hope—was possible. At seventeen Yuuri had killed before, but a hit or two under his belt was worlds away from the scorched earth extermination she demanded, that her blood was calling for. The likelihood that he would die far eclipsed the chances of survival, let alone making it back to the shores of his own country. He didn’t know what it would mean if he _did_ succeed.

And yet…

Meeting her for the first time was like a shot through the heart, aimed with a gun held by his own reflection. Slumped over her brother’s bed and dizzy with exhaustion, she looked fragile, wrecked by all that had happened to her. But from somewhere deep inside of her she drew on a force of will that overpowered everything else—the loss, the fear, the helplessness—and transformed her words into a promise bitter and resolute and real all at once. At the edge of her fury was love, and Yuuri understood more than most the violence an emotion that fierce could inspire, knew then and there that she wouldn’t stop until her enemies were dead in the ground or she was. 

Looking upon her was a lot like remembering. Suddenly he was ten again, at home in the onsen, Mari’s frightened face staring at him from across the room where she was pressed up against the furthest wall, and he back at her—through her—from the curtain of his blood-matted hair and with his bloodstained hands steady as a promise. He would have done anything for her, even then; still would, even now.

Sara Crispino understood that, was living it, and somehow it became easier trying to defy Goliath with the echo of that feeling behind them both.

It started off slow, with just a single man, the way tides sometimes withdrew deep into the sea right before the crushing wave of a tsunami. His name was Luciano Reggio, a retired capo from the Di Angelo Famiglia—old, well-loved, and vulnerable. He'd been recovering at the Ospedale Buccheri La Ferla following major heart surgery two days prior, in a small private room with a view of the sea. For someone as important as this, Yuuri had expected better security; it was all too easy to slip into the hospital after visiting hours, finding himself standing at the foot of the man's bed without a single confrontation with a nurse or guard.†

The room was quiet, and dark, illuminated only by the dim floodlights in the corridor and the reddish cast of Reggio's status monitor. The older man was sleeping, his placid face carved deep with laughter lines, his breathing steady beneath the thin hospital shift. For a moment, Yuuri simply stared, taking in the sight of this man who'd be dead come morning. He felt almost fatalistic, wanted there to be some sign that marked out this occasion, a sense of anticipation hanging heavy in the air for a life approaching its end and the bitter irony that it would happen in the man's own recovery bed. He wanted there to be some sign that he was doing the right thing.

If there was, then Yuuri couldn't see it, the night innocuous in its stillness.

It’s just that, before this, there had always been a clear line: a cause-and-effect, a one-to-one relationship between action and consequence. The hits he’d been assigned were easy because his targets, in one way or another, had fenced themselves into a corner where the only possible outcome was death. Yuuri had no illusions as to his own worth, did not believe in the greater goodness of what he was doing or his moral superiority, but he knew at least that they were all as bad as he was. Kingpins and gun runners and contract killers—bottom of the barrel scum from the criminal underworld who made the mistake of encroaching on the _kumicho_ ’s territory, with hands and pasts as dirty as his. It was cold comfort, but it was Yuuri’s. He clung to it during those long nights when his body wouldn’t stop shaking, when the shadows twisted themselves into the faces of every person he’d killed and threw him back into the moment of their last breath. Their ghosts lived in his heart, his head, and he carried them with him constantly like a cross upon his back.

Luciano Reggio was no innocent. He was a capo, though many years retired now, and had committed a host of crimes during his service for the Di Angelo Famiglia that would have earned him a place in whatever hell he believed in. But looking at him laid out on his bed, the love of his family evident in each gift strewn about the room, he simply looked old—weak in a way that Yuuri wasn’t expecting when he first set out on this assignment. Gone were the thick muscles of his youth, the hard stare, the steady hands that earned him his brutal title as an underboss, replaced instead by a sick and aging body that could not fight back. _This_ was the man Yuuri had to kill.

He touched one of the cards by the bedside table, opening it up enough to read the lovingly scrawled _Nonno_ on the inside flap, and felt sick to his stomach.

“ _Ciao_ ,” a raspy voice called out in the dark, “ _chi sei?_ ” Yuuri looked over, heart stuttering, and found Reggio’s dark eyes fixed on his face. Or trying to, at least. His gaze was hazy from both sleep and pain, slipping from side to side as if the image before him was too hard to hold on to. “ _Sei l’infermiere?_ ”

“ _Sì_ ,” he said, “ _Hai dei dolori, signore? Dove?_ ” His Italian was rusty, but manageable, thanks to Celestino. If Reggio noticed then he didn’t say, only nodding his head slightly as he reached up to signal for more morphine. The painkiller was attached to his IV via a self-administered pump and Yuuri took it in hand, pressing the button to give the older man a small dose before stopping. He settled down on the chair beside the bed, making a soft soothing sound as the other man shuddered, groaning. “ _Presto, ma prima dimmi della tua Famiglia_.”

“ _Per favore…_ ”

Another pump. Reggio’s body drooped with exhaustion, barely awake enough to hear Yuuri ask again, “ _Dimmi della tua Famiglia_.” [1]

This time, he answered, lips loose with morphine. He talked and talked and didn’t stop talking until his entire life was laid bare to Yuuri’s listening ears. He spoke about his wife; about their daughter and her own two sons, who visited just days ago; about his friends growing up and his adventures as a younger man. He spoke about the Famiglia, too: where to find them, how to reach them, about the homes they’d built to gather their members close in comfort and safety. Things that Celestino, with all his connections, could never have uncovered. It was only when the man had finally run out of words that Yuuri let him go to sleep, another dose of the morphine lulling him into his dreams.

The sick feeling in his stomach intensified with each story out of Reggio’s mouth. Rather than the words of a killer, they were of a man who had settled into the warmth of his family, who was content to just _be_ and grateful for his second chance.

Wasn’t that exactly what Yuuri wanted for himself, after all this? To live a softer life?

Now, more than ever, Yuuri wanted to run. But he couldn’t—he’d committed himself to this job, promised Celestino and Sara to see it through. Already he’d revealed his face to the former capo, half-drugged into a stupor as he was that was still dangerous, and there was no turning back.

Yuuri’s hands shook as he searched the room, careful not to disturb anything when he finally found the syringes inside one of the supply drawers. The hollow glass tube and needle caught the light, glinting as Yuuri drew back the hospital shift and pressed it into the man’s chest.

Reggio’s dark eyes shot open. He gasped, dragging in a ragged breath that was muffled by Yuuri’s palm, a look of panic flashing across his face as the air was emptied out through the seam of his surgical scar. The machines were going wild but Yuuri didn’t budge, held firm as Reggio thrashed violently on the bed, limbs flailing in pain, tearing open his stitches.

He left just before the emergency staff arrived, knowing there was nothing they could do to help. The image of those dark eyes followed him out the door, into the balmy streets of Palermo.

He didn’t know it then, but a few weeks later he'd find those same dark eyes in the face of a much younger man—sparkling in delight as the cast of _Lohengrin_ bowed on the stage below, joyful, innocent, twisting into a familiar expression of fear and pain as Yuuri took his life too. When they finally closed, Yuuri felt the last pieces of his own heart slip through his fingers, gone, like the future free of blood he always imagined.

 

* * *

  

 _That’s not my ceiling_ , was the first thought through Yuuri’s head when he opened his eyes. The second thought was pure panic, a chaotic jumble of his pulse firing and muscles freezing all at once, every sense in his body suddenly on high alert. His breath came in gasps—sharp, painful inhalations through his mouth—and he blinked hard as everything blackened around the edges, turning the world into a fuzzy vignette scene for just a moment.

There was blood in his mouth. His body ached. But he wasn’t tied down, and light was spilling into the room from somewhere he couldn’t see.

Then, he remembered—the party, the fire, the chase. How he’d stumbled into the suite after, picking out shards of glass from his aching limbs, bloodied suit left in a pile on the bathroom floor. He had curled up into the cool sheets of his bed as the night swallowed up the world around him, the memory of heat and those dark eyes haunting his dreams.

He was safe, and alive. It was morning.

Heart still thundering, Yuuri sat up and immediately regretted it. He had been too tired to bandage up his injuries from the night before, and it left the sheets spotted with the tacky brownish red of dried blood. His chest hurt, his throat too, so he quickly scrambled over to the bathroom to let the cold tap run into his mouth in an effort to relieve the pain. 

Looking into his reflection, he couldn’t help but wince; he looked as exhausted as he felt, as if all the weight of the world was pulling him down by his ankles. Dark shadows were smudged beneath his eyes, blue-black bruises on his shoulder and thigh from where he’d crashed into the window, his posture sagging until all he wanted to do was melt back into the bed and sleep. If he _could_ sleep, with his blood still pumping adrenaline, with the nightmare still fresh behind his eyelids.

When he got back to the bedroom, freshly washed and clothed, it was darker than before. He had slept in later than intended, the warm daylight turning slowly into the blue of early evening as it filtered through the windows. Beyond the door, he heard voices.

Automatically, he reached for his guns, which were placed strategically by the bedside table for easier access. The hefty weight of them felt good in his hands—slim handled, rough grip, black matte—discreet and deadly. Holding them unloosed something in his chest that he didn’t know had been coiled there, allowing his heart to finally ease off its murderous pace. The acrid tinge of gunpowder still clung to the cool metal from continuous use, the same way it clung to his hands, burning through his nostrils, clearing the last remnants of sleep from his head. The sensation forced him to sharpen, anchoring him to something _real_ in the world so he didn’t get lost inside his own devolving thoughts.

Yuuri always felt safer when he had them. Seventeen rounds each, thirty-four total to hit his mark. Being without them was akin to being stripped naked, leaving him defenseless and soft and open to attack. They were always the last things he touched before he went to sleep, and the first when he woke up, and what he clung to as the darkness pressed in on him during those sleepless nights, when all he could see were the ghosts of his past coming out to haunt him.

Silently, he crept out the door and followed the lure of those muffled sounds into the living room, one gun at ready. Three voices were engaged in a soft spoken conversation; he could just barely identify the words as Russian. He knew already what he would find, but didn’t dare lower his gun until he had a visual, peering around the corner to see the familiar figures of his would-be allies.

It took almost half a minute for them to notice—enough time for him to have shot them twice over, if he wanted.

His grip slackened on the gun. He was safe here.

Mila saw him first, her face brightening when their eyes locked across the room. “If it isn’t the man of the hour,” she teased, waving him over to where she sat. There was a space just big enough for him on the other end of the sofa, right across from the two armchairs occupied by Viktor and Georgi. “We were wondering when you’d finally join us.”

Yuuri cleared his throat, not quite recovered from the smoke, his voice coming out rougher than usual. “Ah, sorry if I’ve kept you waiting…” He stepped into the room gingerly, settling down as far away from the others as he could. The table in front of him was filled with a mess of papers and various maps of Japan, marked out with red along various cities including Fukuoka and Tokyo. The ledger was open at the center of it all, to a page covered in a dark scrawl of numbers and characters.

“It’s alright. You had an eventful night, after all,” Viktor said. He was sitting casually, legs outstretched, an elbow bent on the arm of his chair. One of his hands cupped around his jaw as he stared Yuuri down, his gaze somehow more intense than ever before. “I would have let you sleep the day away, if you wanted, though your evening still belongs to me.” At that, Yuuri started, trying to temper the flush rising in his cheeks. He didn’t know what Viktor could have possibly meant by that, let alone what to say in return, knowing there was always more lurking beneath the man’s veneer of smug superiority than he let on. The last time Viktor had been so suggestive, he’d thrown Yuuri to the wolves, and nearly got them both killed on the merit that Yuuri would be able to fuck his way to the answers. And yet—the depth and texture he’d expressed last night hadn’t vanished, less raw now than it was in the face of certain death, but still there curled around the edges of his words. _Never again_ , he’d said. Yuuri wasn’t sure he could trust it. “We were just planning out our next steps.”

“Hisashi used a cipher so I’m still in the process of having it translated, but thanks to this, we’ve got a pretty good idea of the Sungiru Pa’s assets.” Mila smiled, tapping the ledger with one finger. “They have a lot of holdings here in Japan, amongst other places. You did a really good job—we’re gonna hit them where it hurts.”

"That's your plan, then? To... what, take down their businesses and hope they'll just roll over?"

Yuuri's doubt must have been utterly transparent, then, because Viktor laughed. He snatched up the ledger from the table in a single graceful swipe and tapped the edge of it against his smiling mouth. He looked inordinately pleased, as if he had been waiting all along for Yuuri to ask the question. "Of course not," he said, delighted, "Cutting off their lines of income is part of it, yes, but think of that as more like icing on the cake. Our _real_ target is the head of the kkangpae himself—Seung-gil Lee."

The name was familiar, though Yuuri didn't know much about the man. Seung-gil Lee was young and had emerged on the black market scene only a year prior. He was cold, and ruthless, with a tendency towards perfectionism according to Yuuri's contacts—a rising kingpin with a specialty in amphetamines and methamphetamines.‡

That was half the reason the _kumicho_ had sent him out to disrupt the concord between the Sungiru and Feltsman syndicates. A large influx of drugs from Korea had been encroaching on the _kumicho_ 's painstakingly defended territory, but they had too little manpower to fight it on the ground. As a countermeasure, Yuuri had been sent out to topple their order from the inside-out. The _kumicho_ had hoped to throw the Koreans off balance with the death of their boss and a feud on their doorstep, enough to push them out of Japan completely.

It worked, almost too well. The Sungiru had lost their leader and gained his grandson instead: an inexperienced boy of barely twenty, who had a hit placed on his head by one of the most dangerous men in the criminal underworld.

And it was all Yuuri’s fault.

Uneasiness tore a hole through his stomach, creating a sudden pitfall of sensation that would have floored him if he weren’t already sitting down. He felt his face go sheet white, and struggled not to draw attention to himself, to the way his breath hitched at the sudden tightness of his chest. 

An awful, sudden tug of guilt pulled at him, along with a thread of fear. This was his fault. He’d been too weak to finish the job, and now he was paying for it by selling his services to the one man he should have been staying as far away as possible from. He couldn’t let himself forget what got him here, sitting in front of Viktor Nikiforov and his retinue, and what would happen if they found out. 

Yuuri managed to keep himself from falling apart as Mila continued, “Seung-gil Lee is notorious for never leaving his home country unless he absolutely has to—at least, that’s what I’ve gathered from my contacts in Korea. We’re making inroads on their European holdings, but most of their money is tied up in Asia. If we hit them here, and hard, we’re going to force his hand.”

“You’re planning to draw him out,” Yuuri concluded, voice weak. “What makes you think he’ll even take the bait? He could just withdraw, go into hiding, then all of this would fall apart.”

Viktor shook his head. “He can’t—not if he wants to earn the respect of his group. His grandfather was part of a street gang years before he started the Sungiru Pa, and he did all of his own dirty work. Any good Boss does, at least in the beginning, and that’s why Yakov liked him so much. If Seung-gil doesn’t do the same, then he’s as good as dead to his men either way.”

Yuuri worried his lip, still unsure, but couldn’t find anything else to say as the Russians turned back to their conversation. Once or twice, Mila turned to him with a question about a word written on the ledger or Georgi for confirmation on a topic he’d know better as a native. Otherwise they ignored him, and he was just fine with that. Yuuri didn’t have much to contribute, anyway; he was no more than Viktor’s attack dog, to be pointed at in the right direction and told to bite. 

Sometimes, though, Viktor would just look at him, appraising, as if he were trying to puzzle something out and Yuuri was the key to it all. It was the same face he wore when they were in the car together, silent in the aftermath of promise. Speculative. Calculating. Yuuri wondered if he ever stopped thinking.

Maybe he didn’t need to. Viktor probably never thought himself into the circles that Yuuri did, until his head felt like a ticking time bomb on the precipice of exploding. 

“That would never work,” Georgi was arguing. Yuuri had lost the thread of the conversation some time ago, evolving quickly into a complicated strategy of intercepting shipments and instigating territorial disputes amongst the Yakuza. It sounded like work that was too much for only three people to handle, even though they were arguably the best at what they did. Apparently, Georgi agreed. “We don’t have enough firepower to take their shipments in Kitakyushu. It’s us against, what, fifty? A hundred men? Even with the Ace—maybe if we brought in some of our men from Saint Petersburg…”

“No, absolutely not,” Mila said, “The more people we get involved the higher chance we have of a leak. We’re already asking Giacometti to tie them up legally in Europe. We need Seung-gil to think he has no other choice—create a bottleneck so he has to come and do the negotiations in Japan. And he won’t do that if he knows there’s an ambush waiting for him here.”

“I just think-“

“Enough.” With a single, softly spoken word Viktor had silenced their argument before it ever truly began. Mila and Georgi went quiet as they deferred to their Pakhan. “Mila’s right. The less people involved in this matter, the better. We won’t get anywhere if Seung-gil thinks there’s something bigger at play here than just a few of his warehouses getting raided. We have to do this quickly, and quietly, and that means we have to do it alone.” But Georgi still looked dissatisfied with this answer, ready to make another argument before Viktor cut him off. “I said _enough_. Georgi, step outside with me for a moment. I have something I want to discuss with you.”

The dark-haired man nodded, tense; they both stood up and walked over to the terrace, into the last of the dying sunlight, leaving Yuuri and Mila alone together for the first time.

Though—that wasn’t exactly true, either. All night she’d been in his ear, whispering instructions to him during the entire party. Then she proceeded to save his life and Viktor’s in the chase that followed around the streets of Fukuoka, feeding him directions as he focused on not crashing the car. She was looking at him with such intensity that it was almost frightening, and for the first time Yuuri noticed the pretty cyan of her eyes and the precise shade of her wine-colored hair.

“Yuuri—may I call you that?” Her face broke out into a genuine smile when he nodded. “I wanted to tell you how _amazing_ you were last night. At first I was nervous. I didn’t know how you’d do, because you don’t really look like the _type_ to seduce anyone. And when Hisashi finally got you alone, I honestly thought the game was up…” Yuuri winced at the reminder, recalling just then that she had probably heard his panic attack on the other end of the line. If things had gone differently, she might have had to listen as he got fucked into the table as well. “But you managed to get the ledger, somehow. And,” here, her voiced hitched, full of emotion, “and you saved Viktor. I thought… we didn’t think he was going to make it out of there.”

The memory of when he first saw her flashed, unbidden, into his head. He remembered her standing by the bar in the dark club, the way she looped her arm around Viktor’s as they walked off together. They looked like luminous, untouchable statues in the midst of the swaying masses in that moment and up until they disappeared. 

He wondered if there was any merit to that thought, if there was something deeper in their relationship that he’d missed. Was she jealous? Grateful? It seemed strange, almost surreal, how open she was just then. Were they sleeping with each other, at least once upon a time, for her to care that much? That must have been it.

What a man like Viktor Nikiforov did to inspire this much loyalty, Yuuri couldn't hope to guess. He couldn’t imagine himself feeling any sort of relief if the _kumicho_ were in Viktor’s place. Quite the opposite, in fact. If he lived to see the day that the _kumicho_ finally died, he’d dance with joy and weep in the same breath from relief. 

Yuuri swallowed thickly around the lump in his throat. "It was nothing, really."

Mila shook her head, disagreeing. "Don't be ridiculous. You impressed him last night. It takes a lot for Viktor to be interested in other people and you did it," she snapped her fingers, the sound of it like a gunshot in the otherwise quiet room, "just like that."

_I don't want it_ , he thought almost violently, _I never wanted any of it. I just want it all to go away._ But wanting something and getting it were two very different things. He knew that more than anyone, spent too much of his life wanting things that were always too far out of his reach—freedom, family, peace. Now it all coalesced into the simple desire to fade away into obscurity. When all this was done he wanted to disappear from the thoughts of men like Viktor Nikiforov, like the _kumicho_.

"I wanted to ask you a favor, actually," Mila said. Her voice dropped down into a whisper and she scooted in close, laying her hand on his arm gently. He fought back a flinch at the touch, though she didn't seem to notice, or if she did then she didn't comment on it. "I need you to keep an ear to the ground for any news on those guns. You probably have a better network in Japan than I do, and we need to figure out why Hisashi was shipping them to Russia. I don't know if it's anything to worry about yet, but better safe than sorry."

"Have you told Viktor about them?"

"I have, but.." She looked troubled, glancing over at the terrace doors where the two men were still speaking in low tones. "Viktor can get caught up in his own plans sometimes. _Obsessive_ is the word the _Papa_ always used, but Viktor likes to call himself _determined_. Once he gets something in his head he won't let it go, and he'll ignore the rest of the world to get it."

Mila's smile this time held fondness, but Yuuri couldn't suppress the shiver that ran up his spine. Already he'd seen the force of that determination in the fact that Viktor had tracked him down, by repute alone, to a dirty bar in the middle of Kabukichō. It was something no one else had done, had even come close to, in the almost decade since he started. Yuuri would be worse than dead if Viktor ever found out—there'd be nowhere to hide that the Pakhan-to-be wouldn't drag him out of, kicking and screaming, to some horror he could only imagine.

Before his train of thought could spiral even further, Viktor and Georgi stepped back into the living room. Whatever tension there was between the two men dissolved during their talk; they looked as at ease with each other as ever. They must have been on the terrace longer than Yuuri first thought because it was now full dark outside, the winter night settling in much deeper these days. He shivered as a cool gust of air blew in, remembering suddenly how underdressed he was compared to the rest of them, and felt once more the odd sensation of displacement amplified by the odd scene they all must have made. _This is enemy territory_ , he reminded himself, _don't forget it_. 

"We're done for the night," Viktor said as Mila stood to greet him. She nodded, gathering up all the papers from the desk and shoved them into a slim folder, which she tucked beneath her arm alongside the ledger. She didn't seem remotely curious as to what they'd been talking about outside, and Yuuri couldn't figure out if that was a sign of trust or a genuine lack of interest on her part. Or perhaps it was something they didn't want _him_ to know, and they'd tell her later when he wasn't present. That made him nervous, more than anything. Information was the most effective weapon, more so than even his guns, and right now he had none. It made him feel vulnerable, useless, like stumbling out in the open waiting to get shot. Viktor looked pointedly at Mila and Georgi. "You two are free to go. Let me know if you find anything new," he said, then, to Yuuri, "You should get dressed. We're going to dinner.”

“Dinner?” The word hit him like a punch to the gut, so he repeated it, his voice coming out far away and faint. It took him a moment to notice that the other two had already gone, leaving him alone in the room with Viktor.

“Yes, dinner. I don’t think you’ve eaten anything all day, correct? Make sure to wear something nice—the place we’re going to is particular about those things.”

Yuuri’s hands felt clammy, sweat building up in the creases of his palms. The last time Viktor said something along those lines didn’t end well for him. Already, and not even a day later. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again as if to say something, but he couldn’t find the words. It was like all the nerve had been rubbed out of him in an instant.

The bruise on his neck throbbed with new life. His pulse raced beneath it. Yuuri couldn’t help but reach up for it instinctively, even as he flattened the expression on his face. “I see,” he bit out, looking away. He rose from the couch and moved towards the bedroom. “I’ll just-“

Viktor reached over, catching his elbow as he walked by. The movement startled him and forced him to turn so they stood face to face. Yuuri couldn’t hide his reaction—the way he drew back at the touch, and the way he couldn’t meet his eyes, focusing instead on a point clear across the other man’s shoulder. “Yuuri,” Viktor said, voice cool and smooth and edgeless, “it’s just the two of us. Promise.”

He looked up, then, meeting blue eyes firmly fixed on his face. After another heartbeat, Yuuri let himself breathe, nodding. “Okay.”

 

True to his word, they ate alone. Viktor drove them out—in a different car this time, one that was a low streak of silver on the road—to a discreet restaurant just within the city limits. Yuuri was glad for the tinted windows and the cover they provided, still keyed up from memories of the chase still fresh in his mind. His anxiety was heightened at the prospect of being spotted, and he couldn’t help but keep his eyes fixed on the rearview mirror to track the cars surrounding them, making sure none followed too close or were seen too often. If Hisashi had any sense then he’d have posted his men around the city for any word on either him or Viktor. Yuuri’s first instinct was to hole himself up inside the suite, waiting for the tension to blow over enough that he could find safe passage out of Fukuoka. In fact, he hadn’t planned on coming out of the room at all that day, wanted to spend it curled tight in his sheets and alone. 

Apparently, Viktor had no such qualms; he didn’t even bother getting a discreet car this time around.

Then again, that detail was probably courtesy of Mila or Georgi, now that he was thinking about it. Yuuri missed the make and feel of a Japanese car beneath his fingertips. This one practically _screamed_ foreigner to anyone with half a brain cell still firing, and Viktor himself stood out in a crowd like a beacon of light cutting through the dark.

It was the New Year, so the restaurant was mostly empty, save for the staff and one or two other diners. Even then, Yuuri knew few people off the top of his head who could afford to eat there, and all of them with reputations for extravagance just as illustrious as Viktor’s. They’d parked outside a nondescript tower and took an elevator to the top floor just to get there, to the elegant dining room furnished in a modern style. The maître d’ led them over to a solitary table in the back, right next to a window that gave them a wide view of Hakata Bay and the rolling fog creeping over the water.

Yuuri didn’t bother glancing at the menu. He had no appetite for it, never did during the first few days after a kill. Those months in Italy almost laid him to waste—he’d grown thin by the end of it all, his limbs reduced to bone and whatever scraps of muscle he’d clung to out of continuous use. Celestino spent months getting him back to a regular weight, and almost had him committed to a psychiatric ward when he refused to eat. 

It wasn’t like Yuuri didn’t want to. He knew that he couldn’t survive off water and air; but the hollowness of his stomach was the _truest_ he’d felt in those long days afterwards, the only way to match the emptiness of his mind to his body. He just… couldn’t keep anything down, and didn’t try very hard to either. That, at least, hadn’t changed.

Viktor, for his part, was incredibly at ease. He sat back in his chair without reading the menu, his attentions fixed firmly on Yuuri. His coloring matched the rest of the room, all silvers and blacks and whites, and he looked every bit as sleek and sharp as the atmosphere of the restaurant, almost as if it was built specifically around his presence. It made him wonder if Viktor had always been like this—he had the air of someone who’d been raised in this lifestyle, so used to the opulence around him that it became mundane. Had Viktor ever even had a home-cooked meal? Sat around the dinner table with his parents?

Yuuri couldn’t imagine it; when he thought of those things his heart clenched around the hole in his heart shaped like his family, of the meals they shared together with their friends at the onsen. He stomach ached when he remembered his mother’s katsudon, and he felt hungry for the first time all day.

When the waiter came to take their order, Viktor rattled off a few dishes quickly, sending for a bottle of champagne to be brought to the table.

There was a cold, awkward silence between them that Yuuri didn't know how to work around. He wasn't sure how to talk to Viktor, and didn't want to say the wrong thing. It would have been all too easy to slip up—a question out of line that would set Viktor off, or expose himself completely as the fraud that he was. Already he felt that he'd given too much away, that Viktor had begun to suspect something _off_ about him. 

Though if that were the case, then it didn’t make sense for the other man to draw this out; he would have killed Yuuri by now, if he knew the truth.

Just as he was about to hit the upswing of his silent panic, Viktor spoke, “So, _Yuuri_ ,” he began at practically a croon, “we haven’t gotten much of a chance to get to know each other these last few weeks, have we?”

Yuuri fidgeted, fingering the cuff of his sleeve self-consciously. “What’s there to know?”

“A lot, I’m sure. You didn’t get to be the famous _Devil of Japan_ simply by sitting around and doing nothing, did you? I’m curious about your work.”

If this were another man, Yuuri might have laughed at the sheer absurdity of it all. The statement itself was ordinary enough—the type of thing you’d say to someone you’ve just met, or wanted to become closer to. It wouldn’t have been out of place on a first date even, in a restaurant much like the one they were currently sitting in, over dinner and a bottle of wine. Yet, for all the trappings of _getting to know each other_ that the scene mimicked, this wasn’t ordinary in the least.A hitman and a mafia boss-to-be, dining together as they discussed business, in the middle of a dangerous double-cross. It sounded more like the plot to a bad movie, even to his own ears.

And anyway—the less he spoke, the better. What was there to say? He wasn’t proud of the things he’d done to survive, didn’t want to dwell on all the steps he took towards his own destruction. Yuuri tried to make himself forget in the aftermath of those first few kills, as if doing so would make the task easier. He didn’t want to see their faces in his dreams, or remember the moment when they finally realized they wouldn’t make it out alive. That was the worst part: that last, desperate gasp for life that either fueled their fight to the very end or gave out entirely, sputtering out like the flame at the end of a candle’s wick.

That Viktor could remain so casual about it, while Yuuri struggled to breathe through his memories, only confirmed his own mental weakness. Yuuri aspired to be like him, years and years ago, when he first saw Viktor in that grainy CCTV photo. Even then he looked untouchable, unaffected, unbroken—forged with the strongest type of steel imaginable. Yuuri had never seen anyone like that before and focused on that image during his trainings, his beatings, when the _kumicho_ ’s men did their very best to stomp him into the ground. If he could only be like Viktor then the threats would stop, the ambushes in the dark, when he was pressed up against hard surfaces by men older and stronger than him as they whispered in his ear _how good of a fuck he’d make if he only just gave up, how good of a fuck his sister’s gonna be once he fails._ When even his love for his family didn’t seem enough, he had that image of Viktor tucked inside his heart, and he got up again and again and again. So it was strange _now_ , to be confronted with the man himself, and Yuuri wasn’t quite sure how to reconcile those two things: the Viktor in his imagination, and the Viktor of his present reality.

“I just do what I’m told,” he said eventually. “The _kumicho_ gives me orders and I follow them. There's nothing else to know.”

If anything, though, Viktor’s eyes gleamed at the statement. “Yes, your _kumicho_ , Minami Ryūichi. Let’s talk about him.” He looked suddenly sharp, honing in on Yuuri’s face. “How did you come to work for him? Did he buy out your exclusive contract? What is he paying you? I’m sure I can double it. Triple it, even.”

Yuuri shook his head, fingers clenched over his knees. He refused to answer, couldn’t even if he tried. The words were stuck somewhere in the maze of his throat, which felt far too dry and rubbed raw, still, from the smoke. The waiter returned with the bottle of champagne Viktor had ordered earlier, chilling in its bucket full of ice that he held in one hand, and in the other two crystal flutes. Yuuri couldn’t be bothered to pay much attention when the waiter made a show of pouring the liquid into the glasses, reaching over instead to down the entire thing in one go. Stall, he needed to find some way to stall and avoid talking, and then maybe this entire line of questioning could be forgotten. He poured himself another glass, drank it slower this time now that he had slaked the itching of his throat, looking anywhere but at Viktor.

The other man didn’t look in the least bit affected, taking in hand his own flute of champagne and sipping from it leisurely. His eyes watched Yuuri from over the rim of his glass, considering. “You don’t want to talk about him,” the way he said it more a statement of fact than a question, “or rather, you don’t _like_ to. I'm starting to wonder why that is.”

“There isn’t much to talk about. He’s my boss.”

“So you’ve mentioned. But I don’t totally believe it. There’s something more…” Viktor trailed off, setting his glass down on the table. He pressed a finger to his lips, in a gesture that was fast become familiar, though what it meant Yuuri couldn’t be sure. “You said you weren’t his lover, but do you want to be?”

“ _What?_ ” He spluttered out, almost choking on his own tongue. The glass of champagne rocked precariously in his grasp as he coughed, forcing him to set it down. “I’m not, I can’t, what made you even think something like _that_?”

“You’re very loyal to him,” Viktor said, shrugging. “Whenever I bring him up, you act as if I should keep his name from my mouth. And normally I wouldn’t care who you slept with, or want to in this case, but I need to know where your loyalties lie if we’re going to keep working together. So let me ask you again, _Yuuri_ —do you have feelings for him?”

“No,” he said. Then, again, more forcefully, “ _No._ ”

“So why are you so reluctant to talk about him?”

“He’s…the _kumicho_.” His voice came out higher than he wanted, straining around the word. Yuuri’s mind was still reeling from the last few minutes of conversation. How did they get on this topic? What did it mean?  How could he even begin to explain the tangled up wreck of his life, and how he’d gotten here? Did he even want to?  His head was swimming, already a little heady from the champagne, but he picked up his glass anyway. Though it wasn’t a good idea to drink, not on assignment and not when he hadn’t eaten anything all day, he didn’t let that stop him from trying. “I’m just following orders.”

Viktor’s hand suddenly snaked up, over the table, and clamped down onto Yuuri’s wrist. “You’re _mine_ for the next six months, don’t forget,” he said, tightening his grip slightly on the word _mine_ , “You take your orders from _me_. I need to know I can trust you to do that, when the time comes.”

“I…yes.” Yuuri nodded, shaking; he didn’t notice how much until Viktor let him go, and he tried to bring the flute up to his lips. The champagne spilled out over the rim long before it reached his lips. His skin burned where Viktor had held him, not hard enough to bruise, but searing from his words.

Said man touched him again, steadying his hand with a small smile. “Careful. That’s a ten thousand dollar bottle you’re spilling all over the front of your shirt.”

“ _What?_ ” Yuuri hissed, looking incredulously at the flute of champagne in his hand, then at the bottle sitting innocuously in its silver bucket. “Ten thousand dollars? _Why?_ ”

Viktor shrugged, acting as if the question itself was absurd, and not the fact that he bought that ludicrously expensive drink. “You have to show them you can afford it.”

“Show _who_? Afford _what_?”

But Viktor simply smiled again, sharp, and didn’t say another word as the waiter brought out the first course of their long meal. Yuuri was lost, but said nothing else. They really were from two different worlds; it was obvious, no matter that they were sitting across from each other, who truly belonged there.

It was only after they’d eaten and paid the bill that Viktor acknowledged him again, tossing something into Yuuri’s lap as soon as they were both in the car. Yuuri picked it up—a business card, made of a thick and creamy paper, embossed gold lettering on one side and the other in a finely detailed art deco pattern.

 

 **You are cordially invited to  
** **_Oniyuri-jō_ ** [2]  
**10 January 20xx  
****Black-tie only**

 

“What is this?” He turned the card over in his hands, feeling the bumpy ridges of the lettering. The address written on the very corner of the card, in an ink so faint it was barely visible, was for a location in Kitakyushu. 

“That,” Viktor said, plucking the card out of his hands and turning to start the engine, “is the reason why we’re here and why I bought that bottle. I needed an invitation, and showing them I could afford their entry fee was the only way we could get it. Like I said—this place is particular about those things.”

“An invitation to _what?_ ” Yuuri asked. His temper flared to life for a split second, then died down again, but his voice remained hard.

Viktor was driving, but he wasn’t looking at the road. Instead, his eyes were locked on Yuuri through the rearview mirror. “Tell me, how good is your poker face, Yuuri?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence; murder; PTSD and anxiety attacks mentioned; drugs and drug trafficking mentioned. 
> 
> Thank you again, to my co-author Google Translate. Don't trust my Italian, I literally do not speak it lmao. Now if we were talking Spanish/Tagalog... 
> 
> [1]  
> \- LR: Hello, who are you? Are you the nurse?  
> \- YK: Yes. Do you have pain, sir? Where? Soon, but first tell me about your Family.  
> \- LR: Please.  
> \- YK: Tell me about your Family.
> 
> [2] Oniyuri-jō meaning “Tiger Lily Palace.” In Hanakotoba, the Japanese form of the language of flowers, the Tiger Lily symbolizes wealth and prosperity.
> 
> † These locations are all real, but I cannot vouch for the accuracy of any descriptions. They are all on the coastal side of Palermo. The Solunto are ruins overlooking the Mediterranean sea, the Ospedale Buccheri La Ferla is a hospital a few miles away from that location.
> 
> ‡ Japan’s biggest issue in terms of recreational drug use are amphetamines (and methamphetamines to a lesser extent). They are imported from other countries by the Yakuza—mostly places like Korea, China, etc. The Yakuza in Japan actually have a strange relationship with drugs, because many groups do not condone its usage by either their members or other Japanese citizens. The groups that do tend to have a “bad reputation” amongst other Yakuza groups (according to my research lmao). 
> 
> **
> 
> I’m late, yet again. OTL I promise the week after this one, I'll be back on schedule. Work has gotten a little all over the place—don't ever let anyone tell you that the publishing industry is boring because!! I'm stressed!!!!!! 
> 
> But here’s another longish chapter for you, because writing this is my stress relief—and a lot is happening! More questions than answers are brought up again, but also you get the Yuuri-side of how Lohengrin started! As per usual, Viktor is mysterious and elusive. Will these boys ever just say what’s on their mind??? The answer is: no, because drama. Also, high stakes romances. 
> 
> Enjoy and thank you for your continued support! Your kudos, bookmarks, etc. mean everything to me. I love all your comments and I read them often, because you all are so nice and inspire me to write. Updating now on Mondays/Tuesdays. Find me at my YOI blog [witchsbane](https://witchsbane.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat/ask me questions/etc.! I have like 100 million thoughts about this AU that would be too much to put into the story lmao. I already write unnecessarily detailed chapters—no need to torture you all with a 20k chapter on world building alone.


	10. Propulsion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Propulsion
> 
> 1\. A means of creating force, leading to movement  
> 2\. Thrust, impulse, pressure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at end of chapter.
> 
> Theme for Chapter 10: [Plain Gold Ring](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcsqrkqaCRI) by EZA
> 
> I had to upload this twice—sorry for those who got two notifications. The formatting was weird the first time, and it was late and I didn’t want to deal with it so I just deleted. ∑(;°Д°)

Yuuri shivered as he walked into the cloud of perfumed air, Viktor’s arm wrapped snug around his middle. He seemed to end up in this position quite a bit: defenseless, facing an unknown and potentially lethal situation, with the other man barring the only way out behind him. Predatory eyes raked over them from all sides, and Yuuri wondered what they saw as the two of them stepped more fully into the light. Could they tell how nervous he was, beneath the bravado he donned like a suit of armor? Or how much he wanted to twist away from the man beside him, and from the intimate hold that kept them plastered side-by-side? Maybe, maybe not. But if there had been a time to back out, it was long past by now, several minutes—weeks—lifetimes ago.

The entrance to _Oniyuri-jō_ was accessible only by descending a narrow staircase nestled at the very end of a nondescript alley, just off one of the main roads that ran through the center of Kitakyushu. It was almost formulaic, what they found there—from the slightly oppressive dampness of the entry, to the guard asking them for their invitation through a slat in the metal doorway, to the sumptuous den they wandered into once the doors finally opened. Everything inside was heavy with wealth, done up in velvety red fabrics and shining golden fixtures and gleaming obsidian surfaces. Cut-crystal glasses were stacked on trays made of polished silver, filled with long amber pours of whiskey and cognac. Men and women, sylphlike and smiling, greeted them dressed in uniforms more skin than cloth. With their blown out eyes, and lips cherry red and glossy, wrapped around their supplications as they said things like: _Greetings masters, may I take your coats, can I get you a drink, how can I be of service tonight?_

Just looking at them was discomfiting, a pinprick of guilt inserting itself roughly into the gaps between his ribs. He knew exactly what they were, the moment he laid eyes on them. All of them were beautiful and exotic, each lured from their homes with the promise of money and a new life, or else plucked unwilling from the streets. Now they were blissed out on whatever cocktail of drugs their owners had shoved into them that night, to keep them quiet and pliant, hanging around like ornaments on the arm of whatever guest called them over. It hit too close to home, of what he could have been if he weren’t so adept at having blood on his hands, of what he nearly was just days ago in the office of a man who probably knew places like these all too well. It was what Mari could have become, all those years ago, if he hadn’t come home that night.

The thought sent a shiver racing up his spine, and he found himself unwillingly—but unable to keep from—curling deeper into Viktor’s hold when one of them reached over to offer him a drink. “No thanks,” he mumbled to the server, then to Viktor, “This isn’t a good idea.”

Viktor shrugged as he looked down at Yuuri. His mouth was ticked upwards at the corner, as if he were terribly amused by something he saw there. “It’s necessary,” he said, “Nothing to get so worked up about.”

“You still haven’t told me _why_ that is.”

Mouth flattening into a thin line, Viktor looked less amused now and more searching. His arm tightened around Yuuri’s waist to tug him in closer, and he leaned down until his lips brushed against the curve of Yuuri’s ear, whispering, “Just do as I ask, and follow my lead for now.”

Though—even as he said it, Yuuri already knew he could have done nothing less. What little he'd been told before that night amounted only to the name and address of the venue, and a hint to dress in his finest clothes at Viktor's behest. In the car, during the hour long ride from Fukuoka to Kitakyushu, shortened only by the other man's reckless driving, Yuuri's hands flexed around the empty weight left by the absence of his own guns— _too big,_ Viktor had said, _for the kind of delicate work and discretion this job required_. Instead, he'd been provided with something smaller courtesy of Mila: a Beretta in exchange for his Glocks, less powerful and with less than half the bullets in its chamber, that he kept concealed in a discreet holster hanging by his ribcage. †

“The man we need to see is going to be at the tables tonight,” Viktor had said. They’d left the hotel just as it approached early evening, avoiding the traffic coming in from the main roads by taking suburban streets. The car purred beneath them, tracking smooth along the pavement wet with light rain. Viktor’s attention was split between the road and the passenger seat, one of his hands wrapped around the steering wheel, while the other cupped loose over the back of Yuuri’s neck. He tried not to shiver, the warm weight of that hand and the buttery softness of the leather glove not an altogether unpleasant sensation against Yuuri’s bare skin, and _god_ , wasn’t that a strange thought in and of itself? It took all his effort to ignore it, to focus instead on Viktor’s words, murmured soft and low over the engine. He could feel them travel across the space between them—through the bridge connecting their bodies, from mouth to arm to neck, to where Viktor’s fingers lay just so on the jackhammering pulse behind Yuuri’s ear. “We’re only here to play cards. If all goes well, you won’t even need that gun tonight.”

“So why even bother bringing me along?” He couldn’t help but ask.

“To watch my back,” Viktor flashed a shark-like grin, “and to be my eyes and ears, of sorts. Talk to the staff, mingle with the other guests. Try to get anything useful out of them, if you can. People love to talk when they don’t think they’re being watched, but even more if you offer them a sympathetic ear. There’s a lot of things they might let slip out to the pretty little nobody on my arm, that they would never tell me to my face.” Yuuri swallowed against the knot in the hollow of his throat, fists clenched over his knees. He gave a terse nod and their eyes met through the rearview mirror for a measure, then two, before he forcefully looked down again. As if to reassure him, Viktor’s hand tightened slightly on the nape of his neck, though it did anything but. That simple gesture wound him up, heightening the tension of his body like an over-tuned guitar, sending a thrill through all his nerve endings there. “It won’t be like the last time—you’re here with me.”

That was little comfort, if any. _I was too, the last time_ , he wanted to say, but didn’t, _what makes this so different?_

Once inside _Oniyuri-jō_ , that tension still hadn’t lifted. If anything, Yuuri suddenly felt all too aware not just of his own body, but also that of every other person in the room, cataloging each by level of threat. The guards and servants and the wealthy patrons lounging in various states of intoxication were each sized up, the likelihood of their escape calculated, what he would have to do if worst came to worst and they found themselves in a fight planned. And always, Viktor remained in the periphery of these thoughts, his presence an insistent force pushing its way into the foreground of Yuuri’s mind.

Said man apparently held no such qualms about drinking because he ordered himself a tumbler of vodka and ice as soon as they reached the bar, watching carefully as the drink was poured before casting his eyes about for a vacant seat. He found one in a far corner of the room—a plush, black leathered armchair that he claimed in an instant, bringing Yuuri onto his lap with a single decisive tug. Yuuri gasped, his entire body frozen as he stumbled down, and he made as if to push off from Viktor when the arm encircling his waist tightened its grip. The tumbler of vodka was pressed precariously onto the top of his thigh, and the sweating glass left a ring of condensation there that cooled his skin through his clothes. Yuuri tried to convince himself it was nothing, that the shiver running along his spine was from the chill alone, but Viktor’s mouth was too close. When the other man spoke, his words were all breath and lips in Yuuri’s ear, his voice a heated murmur. “Easier to talk like this without people overhearing,” he said, and Yuuri felt the skin at the nape of his neck prickle and flush red. “Take a look to the right and tell me what you see.”

He did, noting absently that Viktor had chosen a good spot for surveillance. From their vantage point, Yuuri could see the sprawl of the entire room without drawing attention to himself, letting his eyes pass over the view unobstructed. In the far corner was the well-stocked bar they had just come from, row upon row of liquors and wines gleaming in the low light, displayed on the high back shelf. Across the bar were heavy wooden tables, set up as a pair, legs carved with flourishing fleurs-de-lis and tops lined with a swathe of deep green velvet. Only one was occupied for now, the dealer shuffling cards at one long edge, and several people gathering round to watch the on-going game with mild interest. Scattered throughout the room were various pieces of furniture for other guests to lounge upon, served by the scantily clad men and women with drinks stacked on their arms and glassy smiles on their lips.

To his right was one such man, leaning back against a settee with one of the servers wrapped like a ribbon around his arm, surrounded by a small group of other guests. He was older—in his early fifties, dark hair peppered with strands of white and grey, with a short, stout body beneath an expensive suit. His mouth pulled into a cocky smirk whenever he spoke and he was drinking heavily, taking long sips from a snifter held with his unoccupied hand between sentences.

Yuuri didn’t recognize him, but he seemed fairly important, and Viktor confirmed his unasked question moments later. “That’s the Director General of the Kyushu Regional Police, Takeda Yoichi,” Viktor said with a nod in that direction, “According to Mila he’s a regular at the tables here.”‡

He leaned over, his mouth by Viktor’s jaw, face half-hidden by the motion. “And you need to see him?”

“Yes,” Viktor hummed affirmatively, “Georgi was right—the four of us alone aren’t enough to take down even one of the Sungiru’s bases in Japan. They’re too strong, and have too many people here. If I could bring my men here without alerting the Lees…” He trailed off and shrugged, taking a sip from his glass before setting it down against Yuuri’s thigh once more. “But that’s not really an option for us at the present moment.”

“So you’re gonna have the police do your dirty work?” He asked, frowning, trying to piece together the plan locked inside Viktor’s head. “What makes you think he hasn’t been bought already? He’s in a place like _this_ , so clearly he doesn’t care about breaking the law too much.”

“I’m counting on it, actually. Money is a big motivator, and no one has more of it than me,” Viktor said easily. “I heard he’s racked up quite a debt these last few months—one of those people who think that the next one is their lucky break. Whatever his price is, I can guarantee it upfront, and all his troubles disappear just like that.”

“So this game…?”

“So he knows how deep my pockets run, and that this is only a taste of what I can offer.” He said it so casually, so full of confidence, that Yuuri felt his doubts melt away for the briefest of moments, as if they’d never been at all. But still, that was no guarantee, and he found himself picking apart all the ways this plan could go to hell inside his own head until his frown deepened even further.

 _You can’t just throw money at everything and expect it to go your way,_ he wanted to snap back, but was that really the case? It seemed to be working out well for him, thus far—he’d gotten Yuuri where he wanted, with an invitation he’d dropped an easy ten thousand to get without blinking an eye, and was willing to spend even more for the sake of revenge. Not for the first time, Yuuri wondered what was truly driving this man that he was so eager to pour all of himself into the destruction of a single family, albeit one almost as powerful as his own. It seemed too much effort for a broken treaty, when those alliances were always so fragile to begin with and there were easier ways to get back what was owed, and his hadn’t even been the side to suffer the loss of their patriarch.

 _Obsessive_ , Mila had called him. _Determined_ , according to the man himself. Neither of them were lying, exactly, but Yuuri wondered if there was more to it than that, some critical piece he was missing from the portrait of Viktor Nikiforov he was assembling in his mind.

Instead of saying all this, however, Yuuri settled with a slight shake of his head. “Having the police in your back pocket would be useful, but… be careful.”

Viktor’s smirk was as hard-edged as ever. He set his glass down on a low table and reached up, cupping the side of Yuuri’s face with his long fingers. His glove was wet, cool to the touch from his drink, but it was all heat when his thumb brushed across the seam of Yuuri’s mouth. Yuuri’s lips parted, involuntarily, traitorously, in response, a flare of _want_ tugging so suddenly in his gut that it felt like a shift in gravity. He was keenly aware, now, of the weight of his body still seated firmly in the cradle of Viktor’s lap, the way his chest turned so their faces were close together, the murmured words passing between them like a bright lure that pulled him in. “Don’t worry,” Viktor said, his eyes a flash in the dark, alight, “My greatest weapon is right here.” His other hand squeezed Yuuri’s hip firmly, but with enough give that Yuuri could have pulled away if he truly wanted to.

And he didn't—or rather, couldn't. Every nerve in his body was dedicated, in that one singular moment, to the simmering tension rising between them. Viktor's gaze sharpened, locked onto his eyes, like the rest of the world could have fallen away behind them and still they could have looked no where else.

"I—" Yuuri fumbled for words. The clumsy thud of his own heartbeat a war drum in his ears, growing ever clumsier when Viktor's eyes dropped down to his lips.

" _Yuuri_ ," Viktor purred out, his grip tightening as if to bring them impossibly closer, the thumb on Yuuri's lips pressing in to deepen where the seam parted, and then, _then_ — "It's time.”

The moment broke, like the snap of cool air, the rest of the world insinuating itself between them once more. Yuuri turned away so quickly that all the muscles in his neck cricked in protest. To their right, Takeda Yoichi stood and shook off his entourage, draining the last of his drink dry, before he ambled over to the tables in the far corner of the room. It was Viktor who moved first, with Yuuri following him up on legs so unsteady that it was a wonder he could stand at all. The arm slipped from around his waist, and Yuuri took a few steps to widen the gap between them until he could breathe properly again, without the air catching in his throat at every cycle of his inhale and exhale.

Viktor, for his part, was composed as ever, casting a glance back at Yuuri only once as he made his way over to join their target.

He watched them talk, but couldn’t hear them through the distance. Their mouths moved with quick flashes of too white teeth, like sharks circling each other at the premonition of blood. The pair of them were a sight, amongst the sea of people they drew every eye: Viktor, statuesque and silver in the golden light of the room, and Takeda a dark counterpoint to his shining presence. Together they looked almost equals, both wealthy and proud and ready to take risks no normal man would. Except, when Yuuri looked a little closer at Takeda, for the shifty-eyed, hand-wringing eagerness of a man desperate for a win. It was subtle, but _there_ , present in the sharp jerk of Takeda’s head towards the table and the hasty call for a dealer to set up their game. Viktor, he couldn’t read at all, but that wasn’t new, and the Russian’s sure voice rang out over the din of gathering crowd: “Buy me in for five hundred thousand.”

Yuuri moved closer, merging with the ring of people beginning to congregate around the two men. They sat on opposite ends of the table and three more players joined them after a few minutes to make a full game. Brightly colored chips were stacked high by their elbows; Viktor took off his gloves to pick one up, pulling the leather off finger-by-finger-by-finger and laying them down gently at the edge of the table. He rolled the chip over his knuckles, smooth and seductive, like the smile that rolled across his lips.

Yuuri couldn’t help but notice the band of skin on his left hand, empty, where just weeks ago a golden ring had been—the very same one hidden beneath his floorboards miles and miles away in the kumicho’s home. He wondered if Viktor felt its loss as keenly as he did, if he thought at all about the man he’d given the ring to just for the promise of a good fuck, or if the details of that night melted away in light of more pressing concerns.

He hoped it was the latter.

The dealer announced the rules as she shuffled the deck. _Texas Hold’em. No limit. Winner-take-all, with a prize pool of 2.5 million dollars minus the house’s cut of fifty percent._

Admittedly, Yuuri didn’t know much about poker—Takeda’s game of choice apparently, and Viktor’s also. In the car, the Russian let out an amused hum at his questions coming out in rapid fire bursts, fingers stroking over Yuuri’s pulse in the most distracting of ways. “It’s all chance, isn’t it? There’s a chance you’ll lose, and we’ll be back where we started. Aren’t you relying too much on luck?” He asked, fidgeting in his seat as he tried to dislodge the hand at his neck. It didn’t work.

“There is some luck involved, yes, but if Yakov taught me anything it’s that: _you play the man, not the cards_ ,” Viktor answered indulgently. His voice dropped off towards the end into a heavier accent, the cadence of an older man coloring his tone. “Besides, I’m not playing to win. At least not this particular game. Whatever’s in the pool is inconsequential—I’m here for one man, and one man only. This is just a way of smoothing over negotiations. He’ll be more willing to talk with a little money already in his pocket, I think.”

So instead of watching the cards, which apparently didn’t matter all that much anyway, except to shift the chips one way or another periodically, Yuuri watched the players. More specifically, he watched Viktor watch Takeda watch Viktor watch Takeda. The others soon realized, within thirty minutes of the game starting, that they’d been outclassed by the original two who they joined, in hopes of winning the prize at the end by capitalizing on the losing streak Takeda had found himself in over the last few months.

Said man might have even ended it tonight, if not for Viktor playing his cards close to his chest, still rolling a single chip through his knuckles every now and again, all cool indifference.

The more Yuuri watched, the more he understood why Viktor liked this game. He was a man bent on pulling reactions out of people, of wringing the biggest truths out of the smallest details. Takeda had a tell, albeit a small one, in his hands. He didn’t hesitate when bluffing, but always when his hand was higher, a self-destructive impulse as if he couldn’t (and didn’t) quite believe his luck. Viktor saw it first, and played to it a few times, losing half his chips by mid-game.

More interesting than all this, however, was _Viktor’s_ tell. It was subtle, rarer than a blue moon, and Yuuri would have missed it entirely if he hadn’t been trying to parse out the man’s secrets for several weeks already—years, even, if the dossier he’d assembled was any indication of the depth of his fascination with the man. It was in the slightest upward tick of his jaw that Yuuri saw it, a fraction out of line from the usual tilt of his head, as if to project even more to the rest of the world his own superiority, though it needed no reminders.

It happened once, then again, both on bluffs.

Yuuri packed it away in the back of his mind, labeled it for later, so he could turn it over every interaction they’d had thus far in the solitude of his own bed.

“It looks like Takeda’s luck is finally changing,” someone said from behind him—an older man, by his voice, and slightly drunk if his slurred Kansai accent was anything to go by. “He might actually pull off a win tonight, and against this rich foreigner, too!”

The response was immediate, a high feminine giggle. “Don’t say things like that, Nobu-san! The game can always turn—how would you feel if you jinxed your friend accidentally?”

Yuuri turned away from the game, just enough so he could spy on the talking couple without drawing attention to himself.

The woman was older, too, but elegant. A long spill of white hair was pulled up into a stylish coif, and she was dressed in a copper-colored Greek-inspired gown that sparkled in the light. The man she was speaking to, by contrast, was balding and plump, though in a tux every bit as expensive as her dress; tufts of white hair framed the sides of his head, and he had red cheeks that were the product both of alcohol and what was likely just his natural state of being. He looked familiar, but Yuuri couldn’t place him exactly.

"You know I don't believe in that crap," the man said, followed by a hearty chortle. "You're the last one I expected to be the superstitious type, Ao-chan!"

The woman, Ao, gasped in feigned insult, smacking the man's arm lightly. "Nobu-san! Language, please," she turned to Yuuri, then, all smiles. "Isn't the Nobu-san terribly rude to talk like that in front of a lady? I hope you know better, young man!" Yuuri started, caught off-guard by the attention, and even more so by the sudden realization of where he'd seen that man before—a senior member of the Japanese External Trade Organization, he'd been on TV a few times in the last couple of weeks, giving speeches on an issue that hadn't registered on Yuuri's radar until that very moment.

Yuuri turned his most charming, Viktor-esque smile on her, hoping it at least distracted from his earlier awkwardness. "I should hope so," he said, and took Ao's now outstretched hand, brushing a kiss on the air above her knuckle. "Lovely to meet you, Ao-san, if I may call you that?"

Letting out another girlish giggle, Ao focused the full force of her attentions on him. "What a charming young man," she teased, threading her arm through the crook of his elbow. "How come we've never had the pleasure of your company before?"

It took every ounce of his willpower not to shake her loose, and instead gave her a smile that he hoped wasn't too strained. "It's my first time here," he said, "I'm not often in this city."

"Oh!" Nobu interrupted, slapping a hand on Yuuri's shoulder a little harder than necessary, though the man didn't seem to mean anything malicious by it. His cheeks had gone even ruddier, if that was even possible, over the last few minutes. He threw back the rest of his drink with a flourish. "How are you enjoying it, then? This place is a favorite of mine—one of the classier establishments in this town, though it's no Tokyo." He and Ao shared a look, then a laugh, an inside joke passing between the two of them as they glanced around the room.

One of the scantily dressed women walked over to take Nobu's empty glass, and Yuuri watched his eyes trail over her shamelessly.

Seeing that left a sour taste in his mouth, so Yuuri reached over and plucked a new glass from a passing server. He pressed it insistently into Nobu's hand, watching in great satisfaction as the other man thanked him and drank himself well past the point of tact. “It's been great," Yuuri lied, then tilted his head back towards the on-going game, "but I don't have much of a head for poker. Way too complicated for me." At the table, Viktor had just won a sizable pot, if the frustration on Takeda's face was any indication. They locked eyes for a brief moment, brown against blue, before Yuuri turned back to his own conversation. Echoing a question he'd already asked that night, "It's all chance, isn't it?”

Ao took the bait, explaining to him the different hands— _two pair, three, flush and full house_ —as each player revealed their cards. One man had already been edged out of the game, standing to the side as the rest were locked in an intense match, faces impassive, revealing nothing as the money in the pot increased. It was up two hundred thousand, now, before another player folded.§

“It really _does_ look like Takeda might come out on top tonight,” Ao said approvingly.

Keeping his tone as oblique as possible, he looked over at her and remarked, “You sound surprised. They all seem like fairly good players to me.”

“ _Fairly good_ isn’t _great_ ,” Ao said, patting his arm indulgently. “The only ones worth their salt are the foreigner and Takeda, even if he hasn’t done well these last few months. Maybe tonight’s his night—his luck’s got to break some time.”

“He’s been losing a lot?”

“Tons,” Nobu this time, shaking his head, words still slurred but more somber, “enough that his wife left him and took their kids. He’s been under a lot of pressure at work, so I can’t blame him for wanting to… _indulge_ a little. Every man has his vice.” He smiled, reaching over to grope one of the passing servers.

“How awful,” Yuuri murmured, directed at Nobu, who took it instead as encouragement to continue speaking.

“That’s not the worst of it. You know who he is, right?” Nobu gestured towards Takeda with his glass, voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper; Ao leaned in, eager for gossip, and Yuuri followed her lead. “That’s the head of the regional police right there. The Commissioner-General’s been on his case for weeks about that missing cargo up in Moji. I heard, from a friend of a friend, that they’re thinking about letting him go if he doesn’t figure it out soon.”

Ao gasped. She looked delighted, as if this were the most interesting piece of gossip she’d ever received; though Yuuri couldn’t blame her, not when all his senses were on high alert. “How awful,” she echoed Yuuri from earlier, though it sounded anything but sincere, “You’ve been dealing with this too, right Nobu-san? I saw your press conference the other day.”

The man nodded, taking another sip of his drink. “Yes. The Commissioner’s been trying to contain the situation, so the press doesn’t ask too many questions about the missing cargo. Imagine the public outcry if they found out it was full of guns heading for America.”

Yuuri kept himself completely still, forcing himself not to react, even though his first impulse was to seek out Viktor’s face. Instead, he remarked in the most measured tone he could muster, “We’d have riots. Do they have any suspects yet?”

Nobu shook his head. “There’s not enough to go on right now. The Commissioner thinks it might have been an inside job, but personally,” his whisper dropped even lower, eyes shifting around the room, “I think this all stinks of the Yakuza.” Ao pulled away, giggling out a, _“Nobu-san! You and your conspiracies,”_ as she lightly hit his arm. “I’m serious—we’ve had a lot of gang activity lately, not just in Japan, but all over the world. Something big’s happening, and the guns have something to do with it, I can just _feel_ it.”

The dealer called for a short break at the table, so Yuuri excused himself from the conversation, leaving the two to their gossiping. It felt a little too close to home for his comfort, and he didn’t want to know if they were sharp enough to pick up on his discomfort or if his own poker face was as good as Viktor’s. What was his tell?

He made his way back to the bar and ordered Viktor’s drink—two fingers of vodka, a single cube of ice to mellow it out—holding it underneath his nose for a few long minutes. The fumes made him a little dizzy, but the sharp burn of the alcohol more than made up for it, clarifying the jumble of his thoughts into something more coherent.

He saw Viktor spot him from across the room. The other man wove through the thick crowd, all feline grace, every bit a beast of prey on the hunt. He stopped right in front of Yuuri, using one hand to brace against the bar behind them, pinning him into place with the cage of his body and a purr of, “ _Yuuri_ —“

“Don’t lose,” Yuuri interrupted before he could go any further. Their gazes locked, and held. “Whatever you planned on doing before, you shouldn’t lose now. There’s no point. You’d only be weakening your position if—“

Viktor caught his chin mid-sentence, between his thumb and forefinger, brushing against the moue of Yuuri’s mouth. The simple gesture, with the slightest of pressures, ended the spill of nervous chatter that had begun to work its way out. Raising a silvery brow in interest, Viktor leaned back further so he could properly map out the expression on Yuuri’s face. “I’m listening,” he urged, but didn’t let go, “ _Convince me_ why I should. I’m not trying to make him mad, which is exactly what he’ll be if he loses one more time. Resentment is too unpredictable an emotion for me to work with.”

“You won’t have to. You have something better than that.” Yuuri pulled away, with some difficulty, swallowing down the pulse beating wildly in his throat. “Do you remember what Mila told you about the guns? That conversation we overheard from Hisashi,” the memory kindled a hot flare of spite inside of him, which he locked away for later, “It turns out Takeda’s looking for them, too. Desperately enough that his job’s on the line. Tell him that we’ll give him what he needs to find them, if he sends you your backup.”

“And you’re sure about this?”

Yuuri nodded. “Positive. You can’t trust someone who works just for the money,” he said. “Money he can get from anywhere, especially if he’s already been bought once. Information, though—that’s something only you can give him. He won’t be able to say no.”

A bright gleam flashed across those blue eyes. Viktor leaned forward, close enough that Yuuri could smell the dizzying aftertaste of vodka on his breath. Or maybe it was on his own? “I _knew_ bringing you here was the right choice,” Viktor said, low, excited, “You’re proving to be worth your weight in gold, Ace.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Mentions of guns; implied prostitution and sex trafficking; gambling.
> 
> † Yuuri’s standard guns are two GLOCK 17 Gen 4s, which measure around 7.95 inches in length and hold up to 17 rounds in the standard magazine. In contrast, the one Mila gave him specifically for concealed carry is the Beretta Pico—which is one of the thinnest pistols on the market, measures only 5.1 inches in length, and has 6 rounds. Definitely easier to carry, but a huge deficit in terms of firepower.
> 
> ‡ As far as I understand it, the different prefectures of Japan have their own Regional Police Bureau, run by Director Generals who answer to the Commissioner-General of the National Police Agency.
> 
> § These are the different poker hands that you can get throughout the game, by descending order of best to worst. I didn’t write out a really elaborate poker scene—mostly because I’m not a great player, and would probably need to do even more research, but also because the game itself isn’t the most important part. It’s what they say about it. ;) 
> 
> But just to clarify—the “pot” in poker is the amount of money the players put down for each round. You can put as much or as little you want per betting round (of which there are four), and your opponents can match your bet, raise it, or fold and give up whatever they’ve already put into the pot.
> 
> **
> 
> This chapter was a bitch and a half, mostly because of the things I had to look up. I cut down on my footnotes because you all didn’t need that in your life. Anyway! Next chapter is where Viktor’s plan reaches its first big moment—and boy, is Yuuri not prepared for it. It’ll be a long, wild ride in chapter 11. There’s a plan in all this, I swear.
> 
> Also I added my theme song for this chapter up top. You don’t have to listen, but it’s the song I’ve had on repeat when I wrote this… This is basically Viktor’s theme for the first part of this story.
> 
> Enjoy and thank you for your continued support! Your kudos, bookmarks, etc. mean everything to me. I love all your comments and I read them often, because you all are so nice and inspire me to write. Updating now on Mondays/Tuesdays. Find me at my YOI blog [witchsbane](https://witchsbane.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat/ask me questions/etc.! 
> 
> Side note—I was thinking a few days ago, Shakespeare In Love YOI fic. Yes/Yes????


	11. Immure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Immure
> 
> 1\. To enclose or confine against their will  
> 2\. (Obscure) To surround with walls, fortify

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at end of chapter.
> 
>  
> 
> Viktor, in this chapter: _*mob boss intensifies*_

_“Ace, are you in position?”_

The words came out in a high, static whine, Viktor’s usually rich tones turned warped and tinny through the earpiece. It was a quiet night, broken only by the sound of his voice and the hollowed out pinging of light rain against the steel freight containers lined up in rows and rows all over the port. It had been pouring on and off the entire evening, and it left the air heavy and wet, tinged with the pungent smell of rust and fish oil from being so close to the sea. Visibility was poor—there was little light by way of the moon, and the flood lights meant to ward off trespassers worked only haphazardly throughout the whole of the port.

If nothing else, it provided good cover for sneaking around undetected, his footsteps masked by rainfall and he, nothing more than a shadow creeping by on the edges of sight. But it also meant that his backup would be flimsy at best, if it could be counted on at all. After all, even a marksman as skilled as Viktor Nikiforov would have a difficult time trying to shoot in the dark.

Impossibly, illogically, Yuuri almost felt the heat of his gaze across the distance that stretched out between the both of them. There was no way that Viktor could _actually_ see him, yet every nerve in Yuuri’s body was alight with just the suggestion of it, heightening the paranoia wound up like a spring inside of his chest—and something else, too, simmering in the base of his spine that he refused to name. Viktor was _there_ , somewhere, hunkered down in one of the empty buildings lining the end of the port. He was looking through his scope at the very same warehouse Yuuri himself was scouting, looking for _him_.

Viktor’s exact location remained a mystery, though Yuuri could have probably narrowed down the possibilities with a few educated guesses: somewhere with a high, unobstructed view of the port; no more than half a mile away in the poor light, and within sights of a relatively clear path for extraction should it come to that. But it wasn’t as if the man had entrusted Yuuri with anything more than the barest details of his plan and a vague promise after their briefing was over. _Don’t worry, I’ll be around,_ Viktor had said, but Yuuri couldn’t help but feel as if he’d been marooned on a desert island and left to fend on his own.

At the very least he had his guns, silencers attached, which rested comfortably in the holsters at either side of his hips, and the spare magazines he’d clipped to the back of his belt. Mila had offered to procure something with a little more firepower for him, but Yuuri declined; if he was to walk headfirst into enemy territory, then he would rather it be with weapons he trusted. To sacrifice that for the sake of a few extra rounds was asking for trouble.

These ones had been a gift from a friend, during one of his many long stints in America, and he had come to know them like the back of his own hand. Their shape and grip and recoil were all familiar friends, embedded in his muscle memory so deep that he could piece it together in the dark, that he sometimes reached for them in his sleep as if they were extensions of his own limbs. The weight of them was reassuring, an anchor that kept him tethered to the real world; they’d kept him alive when it seemed that survival was all but hopeless, and he’d come to think of them as good luck charms, his own morbid omamori.

He also carried a knife, sheathed against the line of his thigh, and wore a thin kevlar vest that wouldn’t hold up beyond a bullet or two. Aside from those things, he didn’t have much in the way of advantages, not armed to the tooth as he had first expected when Viktor told him they were planning to take the warehouse at Kitakyushu port.

They had been sitting with Mila and Georgi in the common room of the suite, which had been transformed that evening into the unofficial war room of Viktor’s _shestyorka._ Papers were strewn across the low table, maps drawn up against every available flat surface she could find—some featuring Europe and various other countries in Asia, but mostly of Japan. Mila had been hard at work gathering intelligence on their targets, and it showed when she handed him a thick dossier for his next assignment, the folder a good deal heftier than the previous files he’d been given. She’d somehow found aerials of the docks for him to commit to memory, as well as long-distance surveillance shots of their target and her close associates.

“Park Min-so,” Mila began, pointing to one of the photographs she’d laid out on the table; it was of a woman in her late-forties, with dark hair and a sly expression on her thin face, stepping out of a sleek black car. With her were three guards, stocky, and with a look about them that suggested _thugs_ , the kind that trafficked regularly in violence. “She’s an underboss working for the Lee Family, and one of the major players in their international ring. She’s been building up the gang’s presence in Japan over the last five years and runs most of the distribution south of Tokyo; Hisashi is her biggest account there.” Next, she slid a familiar ledger towards him, which now had a multitude of colorful tabs sticking out of it, and pointed to a page filled with a series of numbers—indecipherable to Yuuri, but apparently not to Mila. “Next week there’s going to be a major drop of prescription pills from the U.S. at Kitakyushu port. Your job is to make sure she gets caught after the hand-off has happened.”

Yuuri furrowed his brow, picking out the photographs of Park and thumbing through them one by one. “Why not just send the police directly there? Viktor’s already guaranteed their cooperation, and it would be hard to miss a cargo load full of pills. It would be a lot simpler, less room for error.”

“I would,” Viktor hummed, “but taking Kitakyushu is only part of the plan. We need Park in police custody alive, in a way where she can’t claim entrapment and disappear back to Pyeongchang. She was a close associate of the late Boss, so she knows a lot of his back door deals in Japan—the kind of secrets that your National Police and INTERPOL will be tripping over themselves to get.”

“Why would she talk? If she was that close to the Lees, she won’t take a deal that easily.”

Viktor shook his head. “She doesn’t have to. Even if she stays quiet, Mila will be feeding Takeda information from the ledger, so he’ll be raiding their dens anyway. I suspect you’ll be hearing a lot more about it on the news soon—it will definitely improve his reputation, might even get him a promotion as one of Japan’s hardliners against drug trafficking.” He let out a smirk, placing a finger to his lips, his eyes gleaming with a look so sharp that Yuuri almost flinched back. He grabbed her photograph from Yuuri’s hand and stared at it for a moment. “But to Seung-gil and his people, it will look like she squealed, just like a little piggy. And do you know what happens to bosses who can’t reign in their subordinates?”

A memory resurfaced in Yuuri’s mind, of a conversation they’d had not long ago, sitting in that very same room. Viktor’s words echoed out of his mouth before he could stop them. “ _He’s as good as dead,_ ” he repeated, pulse suddenly spiking. “You said that a boss who doesn’t earn the respect of his group is as good as dead.”

“So you _have_ been listening.” Viktor sounded elated. “Seung-gil won't have a choice but to come take care of the problem himself, if he doesn't want to get... _deposed_ , as it were. And that’s when we’ll take him out. All Takeda has to do now is his job, especially once we’ve delivered everything he needs in such a neat little package—Park Min-so in police custody, and all the evidence to convict her in what will probably the easiest trial in Japanese history.”

Hearing this hardened the knot of dread twisting around Yuuri's stomach, and once again he thought of the very fine line he walked between freedom and death, of how narrowly he had escaped becoming the target of Viktor's carefully calculated animosity. If anyone could have accomplished this mad, impossible task it was _him_ , Viktor Nikiforov, the Living Legend, of that Yuuri was now convinced.

Still, he remained antsy, the anxiety of being so close to danger eating at his nerves. It was a feeling that never quite left, no matter how long he'd been on the job.

The rain eased off, but by then his combat blacks were already soaked through, and an unpleasant chill had begun to settle in his bones. He maneuvered himself around a freight container, into a narrow passage where he could get a clear view of the warehouse entrance. After confirming he was alone for the moment, he brought his mouth down to the speaker pinned to his collar, responding in the lowest possible voice he could, "I'm in position. Waiting for visual confirmation of the target."

Viktor hummed through the line, and the sound of it sent a shiver racing up his spine. It felt too close, the vibration almost a whisper breathed into the shell of his ear. " _Good. On standby._ "

They didn't have to wait long. It was less than half an hour later before unmarked white vans began pulling into the property, the cacophonous rumble of low-end engines and the streak of wheels over water the only warnings he got as Park Min-so and her gang arrived. From one of these she emerged, dressed from neck to knee in a fur-collared coat pulled tight over her skinny frame, with the three stocky guards Yuuri remembered from the dossier. She barked something out and the three quickly formed a tight phalanx around her, though it somehow did not make her look any smaller, while men exited the other vehicles and began unloading hefty packages from the back. Each was wrapped tight in nondescript brown paper, but carried as if they were made of gold; this had some merit, seeing as the amount of money those drugs would fetch on the streets were easily worth more than they'd probably earn in their lives. Park cast her eyes along the perimeter of the warehouse, as if she could sense something _off_ about the scenario. Yuuri ducked a little deeper into his shadowy nook, making sure that his entire body was concealed in that dark cut between the two freight containers. He strained his eyes and ears, trying to decipher the caustic instructions that lashed out of Park's mouth, but the Korean was too fast for him to understand properly with his less than rudimentary knowledge, and his lip-reading was no better.

Viktor confirmed that he saw them, too, from whatever distant perch he was watching from. “ _I have visual on ten bodies, four cars. It looks like there’s one more headed your way from the east._ ” Yuuri nodded, though he knew that the other man couldn’t see, and waited for the last of Park’s men to arrive.

Except—unlike the hulking white vans that had driven up only a few minutes earlier, this car was a sleek black sedan. It rolled close to the ground, built with a wide carriage, and had an engine that purred rather than roared its arrival into the night. Park strode up to the car with a strange expression upon her face, while her guards shifted in their formation, as if not quite sure what to do with their bulk, before following her just half a step behind. Yuuri sucked in a breath, immediately unnerved by the situation; through the earpiece, he could hear Viktor asking him what was wrong, but he had no way of answering the question without giving his position away. Instead he leaned forward, tried to peer through the tinted windows to see who was inside. It must have been someone important, if Park’s attitude was anything to go by.

A man emerged from the backseat, dressed in a stiff black suit. For a moment, Yuuri thought this was who Park had been waiting for, but quickly discarded that idea as he circled the car and pulled open the door on the other side. A hush fell over the lot as another man—a boy, really—stepped out into the cool air. In the dim light, Yuuri could make out brown hair and pale skin, wide eyes set into what would have been a sweet face save for the steely look there. Park bowed low, and the rest of her subordinates followed suit. “Ji Guang Hong, you honor us with your presence,” she said, in English this time.

The boy smiled, dipping his head slightly, before looking around the surrounding area. "I'm only here to safeguard my grandfather's interests, Miss Park. Did you have any trouble with the drop tonight?"

Park shook her head. She turned back to her men and directed them to continue unloading the cargo from the vans; after a moment of stillness, they resumed, though not without glancing back at the boy every now and then. "No, the drop was clean. Please give my thanks directly to Mr. De la Iglesia. I understand he's a close associate of yours."

Again, he smiled. The more Yuuri saw it, the more it troubled him, sensing some hidden danger beneath that placid expression. He recognized the name Ji, would have been a fool not to know one of the most powerful Triad families in Shanghai, but he had never seen this boy before. The reverence Park showed him wasn't easy to dismiss; perhaps he bore some relation to the main family?

Yuuri catalogued this information for later, memorizing every detail of that face that he could.

"Yes, Leo is a good family friend. I'm glad everything went well. There's been some trouble in Japan recently, so my grandfather wanted to ensure that you didn't run into any trouble tonight—for both your sake, and ours."

"The Lee Family appreciates all that the Ji Clan has done to bolster their support in this difficult time," came the formal response. Then, more urgently, "I heard about the fire at Takumi Hisashi's party. Four of your men died, correct? Did you find out who they were targeting?"

"Nikiforov was there."

At that, Yuuri froze. His heartbeat was suddenly too loud, every shift of his body an alarm that announced to his enemies exactly where he was. He held his breath, waiting, sure that someone would notice. But after a minute passed and no one had turned towards him, he forced himself to calm down, pressing a hand to his chest, over the speaker, as if doing so would muffle the thunderous pulse that threatened to beat out of his skin. Viktor was silent on the end of the line, so Yuuri wasn't sure if he heard anything.

Park swore, spitting out Viktor's name like it left a bad taste in her mouth. She was a close friend of the last Lee boss, Yuuri recalled from his briefing; the very same man that Yuuri had shot dead, believing it was Viktor Nikiforov in his crosshairs. Guilt curled its fingers into his spine and refused to let go.

"Filthy _bae ban ja_ ," she sneered, tacking on another curse at the end for good measure.[1] "May he and his rot in hell. What is he doing in Japan? Do you think he knows?"

Ji shook his head. "I don't think so. According to my men, Hisashi was gone for most of the night trying to fuck his whore and didn't spend much time with Nikiforov himself," the irony would have made Yuuri _laugh_ if doing so wouldn't have gotten him immediately killed, "Apparently he was there _on business_ —my guess is he's trying to expand into Asia via Japan, now that Korea is no longer an option and neither is the mainland. We've never been on friendly terms with the Bratva, especially now."

"Still," Park said, "we have to be careful that no one finds out. We'll ask our informant to dig around for why Nikiforov is in Japan. I'm sure both Lee _sajang-nim_ and Ji _Lóngtóu_ are curious about his next steps so they can plan their own. We'll let you know as soon as we've heard anything new."

As abruptly as the conversation began, it ended. Park bowed, offering her thanks on behalf of the Lees, and Ji accepted graciously. The boy stepped back into his car after a few more well wishes, and was soon being driven out of the docks and back into the city proper. Park's men had finished unloading their vans and were now waiting for their boss' new orders, which she gave in her barking Korean once again. She stepped into the warehouse, with all but two men following her inside, leaving them to watch the doors.

Yuuri retreated further into the shadows, losing sight of the warehouse, his heart racing. “Viktor,” he hissed into the speaker, “did you he—“

“ _I heard,_ ” came the crackling reply, “ _but we move forward as planned. Secure the exits and lure Park to the rendezvous point. You have less than half an hour left before Takeda’s men arrive, so hurry._ ”

Noting the urgency in those words, Yuuri obeyed, his small hum of acknowledgement going unanswered before he fell silent once more. He peered through the narrow opening between the containers, at the warehouse entrance, and slipped out the other way to avoid the notice of the guards. He ran a wide circle around the site, footfalls silent as he could make them against the wet ground. There was a rumble in the air, something charged and faintly electric, stirring up the beginnings of a storm. The tides were getting more violent, and he could hear them crashing along the boats docked in the port, even now, matched to the roaring of his pulse.

The warehouse wasn’t so large that it had many openings, and it took only a few minutes until he was behind the building. There wasn’t a soul in sight of the backdoor, and after making sure the coast was clear, Yuuri crept along the edge of the wall, fiddling with the lock until it clicked open to let him inside. Not for the first time, he was glad for the mask covering the lower half of his face; the room he entered was dusty, and smelled faintly of rust and mold, the air humid from the rain. It was dark in the hall, but he went further still, following the faint sounds echoing from deeper inside until he was just on the edge of the main floor.

People were moving inside, stacking up the cargo in the corner, before taking one to a table at the center of the room. Yuuri hid behind a shelf and watched as Park took out a knife from her coat, slicing into the sealed parcel with a single, swift motion. She pulled out a hefty bag that was full to bursting with a bulk load of pills, opening it up and taking out a single pill, holding it up for inspection in the dim light. It was smooth, practiced and precise, the way she crushed the small white tablet with the back of her knife and licked the fine residue it left on the hilt, rolling the taste of it along her tongue, judging.

The men watched in rapt fascination, silent, before one of her personal guards asked, “Is it any good?”

They all let out a collective sigh of relief when she nodded, then proceeded to thump each other on their backs with a sense of accomplishment. Their duties for the night were complete—the drop successful, the storage finished without any major delays, the quality of the drugs verified. The distribution would happen later on, but for now they could celebrate a job well done.

“Lee _sajang-nim_ is going to be really happy,” one of the men said with a grin. “That De la Iglesia kid really pulled through on this one.”

“‘Course he did,” another replied. “The Ji Clan only works with the best, and they only send the best to their friends. Old Boss Lee is still watching over us, even from the grave.”

A hushed silence blanketed the group, reverent and respectful, serving only to deepen Yuuri’s discomfort. He pressed his palm to the speaker again, muffling the device against his chest, though he wasn’t exactly sure what it would accomplish. The more they talked about the late Boss, the more anxious he got—as if, by some sudden turn, Viktor might realize that it wasn’t the Lees who had betrayed him, but rather the Ace now working at his behest. The static across the line told him nothing of what Viktor felt, hearing such praise about a man he firmly believed had double-crossed him.

Yuuri wished, now more than ever, to see his face. Then he could watch for that barely there tell in the tick of Viktor’s jaw, could be absolutely sure as he stared death down, not fearing it at every corner.

_Death._

He was always thinking about it these days. Was he really that prepared to die? The short answer was yes: it had always been a possibility, looming like a specter at the edge of his consciousness. Yet, lately, ever since Sochi, it seemed more like an inevitability. To be fair, everyone died at some point in time, but not everyone walked hand-in-hand with it. Death was always present, and had been for a long time.

It was what got him started with this life.

Killing the _kumicho_ ’s son was his first mistake. That accident changed everything. Though, he would have done it again, given the chance, wouldn’t have let Mari become _this_ —someone who walked with the weight of all that death around their shoulders, dirty, monstrous, ready to die. It wasn’t her fault. She had always done her best by him, for him; _he_ was the reason she fell into that crowd in the first place, and it was up to him to see that debt paid when the blood was on his hands.

Still, it would have been easy to die, if he really set his mind to it. On his first real mission, the _kumicho_ had coldly pressed an envelope into his palm right as he left. In it was a little glass ampoule encased in a rubber sheath, containing a small amount of fine white powder. Yuuri hadn’t needed anyone to tell him what it was, what it was meant to do; he merely tucked it into the corner of his mouth, right in the gap between his gums and his cheek, and prepared himself for the possibility of using it. Thankfully, he hadn’t needed to. But in those weeks following the mission, he considered it, ruminated over it, turned the idea over in his head so often that all of its jagged and unpleasant edges smoothed out, like a stone rubbed into roundness at the bottom of the sea. The release he sought, final and untouchable, was well within his grasp. All he had to do was crush that ampoule between his teeth and let the cyanide do its work. †

He never came close to _actually_ attempting it, knowing what would happen to his family if he did. And, truthfully, in no small part afraid of what came after—whether it be nothingness, or a judgement, or a reincarnation—all of them held a special sort of horror he couldn’t name, made him want to cling to life to see if he could set things right no matter how futile his efforts were. He had to try, at least, to get back to them, Mari and his parents and Minako, to give them back all the years they’d worried about him. It was all he could do.

An ampoule was there, now, nestled in the gap between his gums and cheek.

Yuuri ran his tongue over the shape of it. The rubber was a taste as familiar as his own mouth, something he rarely thought about these days, except when his mind turned overly morbid. Or, surprisingly, when he needed the comfort. It offered a different kind of safety than the one his guns did, but no less important in that it kept him sane over the years.

Instead of dwelling on the point further, Yuuri sharpened his focus. He needed to create a diversion, quickly, that would steer Park Min-so towards the rendezvous. There was twenty minutes left before he overshot the mark, and he still needed to pick off as many of her men as possible. He could leave no witnesses behind.

Gun in hand, Yuuri edged along the wall, still hidden in shadow, looking for the best position to begin eliminating his targets one by one. It was difficult to do so without the risk of scattering them all, and losing Park in the middle of the ensuing chaos was almost guaranteed in that scenario. As he moved around the room, assessing the situation, his hand suddenly came in contact with something hard and metallic jutting out of the wall—a fuse box. Yuuri almost smiled behind the mask. An idea began to coalesce in the back of his mind, and he seized hold of it before he could convince himself otherwise. He opened the fuse box, and, after making sure he wasn’t grabbing any exposed wires, braced his foot against the wall and _pulled_.

The wiring came away easily, with a violent _crackle_ and _hiss_ , followed by a series of sparks that juddered out of the naked inductors. Yuuri held it away from his face, towards the wall, where the sparks caught on the wooden surface. A thin line of smoke coiled up like a snake from the embers, and he blew at them gently, noting absently that the lights behind him flickered as the electricity inside the warehouse fluctuated wildly. The embers burned with the red-gold of heat, a small flame sizzling into existence, leaping up to envelop the fuse box. Yuuri let go of the wire, which was still in his hands, and stepped back to admire his handy work.

The fire was steadily growing, but it wouldn’t last long before it was snuffed out. Already, the storm outside was raging and howling into a frenzy, and the warehouse itself too damp to properly go up in a blaze.

But it was just enough to catch the attention of Park and her men, some of whom were coming around the shelves to check on the commotion.

Yuuri brought up his gun, firing the first shots as soon as they were in his line of sight. It was too quick for them to process—one, two, three—they fell in rapid succession, dead before they even realized there was a fight. The muffled _bang_ of the gunshots slipped beneath the snap and crackle of the fire. Yuuri ducked behind the shelf, peering around its other end, and saw the group still standing by the table as Park yelled out instructions to men she didn’t know were dead. Their alarm grew as dark smoke poured out from behind the corner, and when no one answered her, Park sent another two men after them. It didn’t take long for Yuuri to dispatch those as well.

Park grew suspicious, and it was only a moment later that she ordered the rest of her men to pull out their weapons, reaching for her own in the voluminous folds of her coat. Before any of them could so much as fire a single shot, Yuuri aimed once again, this time landing a bullet between the eyes of one man and another in the shoulder of a different guard. They dropped to the floor in alarm, one of the men dragging Park with him and covering her with his body. Behind Yuuri, the fire was beginning to die out, smothered by the humid air even as smoke continued to emanate from the fuse box and surrounding wall, the wet wood making it look much worse.

There was no point in hiding any longer, not after having given away both his presence and position with that last shot. Yuuri peeled out from behind the shelves at full tilt, just as the guards regained their bearings; a flurry of shots nearly struck him dead on as he ran, streaking around the edges of the dim room, trying to keep his movements spontaneous and unpredictable to avoid getting hit. Even so, it was difficult to concentrate with four guns aimed his way. Yuuri geared back as the wall in front of him splintered, a foot away from his body, nearly tripping over himself as wood and gunpowder blew him back. The mistake forced him to turn unexpectedly, and instead of moving _away_ from the line of fire, he was now running towards it. He sent off a volley of shots in the vicinity of the group, no time to aim, hoping that it would at least buy him enough time to find adequate cover.

Yuuri dove to the floor, landing sharply on his ribs even through the kevlar, and, ironically, rolling behind the cargo stacked in the far corner of the warehouse. Park and her guards were still in the center of the room, taking cover behind the now overturned table, one man bleeding from his shoulder and her crouching between them. Laying flat on his stomach, Yuuri took stock of the situation, even as bullets sailed overhead and punctured through the tightly sealed packages, scattering white powder over him like a dusting of sugar. Though he had his mask on, Yuuri shoved his face into the crook of his elbow to avoid breathing it in, coughing through his sharp intake of air and dust.

Park said something in Korean, and the bullets stopped. Probably didn't want to risk damaging any more of the product than strictly necessary, Yuuri mused, though it wouldn't matter in the end.

" _Fifteen minutes left._ "

He needed to get Park Min-so up and out of the building, to the rendezvous point _now_. Quickly reloading his empty magazine, Yuuri pulled the other gun from its holster, one in each hand, and drew himself up into a low crouch behind the cargo. He peered around the edge of his cover. Park spotted him first and raised her gun, pulling the trigger in a jerky motion that sent her shot wide, arcing far above his head. The sound of it startled her men, and Yuuri took the opportunity to respond with a few of his own, the recoil shaking all the muscles in his arms as they locked into position. He gritted his teeth through it, pointing the barrel down at the ground in front of them, sending shrapnel and concrete and wood into their faces. They soon realized that the table wasn't a sustainable shield and began to move away, only for Yuuri to fire at them once more—this time his aim true, dropping another guard with a bullet through the head. One of the men _howled_ , enraged, and looked as if he were about to rush towards him before Park pulled him back. They ran towards the entrance, shooting behind them carelessly, the men covering for Park even as Yuuri's bullets dogged their steps.

Mouth against collar, pressed into the speaker pinned there, Yuuri said, "They're headed for the door. Park is out front."

" _I've got visual on north and northeast. Herd her west._ "

"I know," he said, but the sound of it was lost as he jumped up and began firing in earnest at the retreating figures. The sudden deluge of bullets forced them back faster, until one of the guards threw himself against the door, his shoulder butting into the wood until he fell into the pouring night. The wind whipped through the warehouse, the door slamming into the frame once, twice, before flying into the outer wall so hard that it shook the building. Park was shouting as she ran outside, but Yuuri couldn't understand a word she was saying—only that he had to move quickly, urgently, before he lost his chance.

Yuuri was outside in a heartbeat, and drenched just as quick. The guns were a slick, wet mass of metal in his hands. He swore, berating himself for not reloading them when he was inside; now he only had a few more rounds left, and couldn't risk putting in new clips in the rain without asking for a squib load or misfire. The harsh wind nearly knocked him off his feet, and he looked around, trying to pin down the bright flash of Park's coat in the night. He noted dimly that the two guards who were standing by the doors were dead, slumped against the wall with a dark splatter of blood surrounding them, washed away by the rain. Park was only a few feet ahead of him, with her last two men on either side of her, headed towards the cars.

A flutter of panic rose up inside of him. If Park got there first, if she got into the car, then it was over. There was no way Yuuri would be able to stop her from peeling away from the scene. He didn’t have enough bullets to empty into the engine—ten shots left, at the most—no guarantee that it would stop the car, unless he got lucky and managed to hit something vital. “Vik—“

But before the name even made it out of his mouth, the windshield _shattered_ , sending shards of glass flying in every direction. Yuuri threw a hand up to protect his eyes, just in time for a second shot to dent the van’s hood. Then a third, and a fourth and fifth, leaving a series of sizable holes gaping in the aluminum. For a moment, they all stood frozen, Yuuri and Park and her two men, staring in shock at the abused vehicle. The only thought in Yuuri’s head was _Viktor, Viktor, Viktor, making that shot even in these conditions,_ with his breath caught somewhere between his heart and his throat.

Still, there was no time to waste. Yuuri had recovered first, rounding on the group. They were out of bullets as well, with no time or opportunity to reload their weapons. So while they outnumbered him, it was all they could really do to retreat in the direction Yuuri was carefully steering them towards, trying not to make his intentions too obvious.

He had studied the layout of the port extensively, poring over the aerials and surveillance photos from Mila’s dossier; if need be, Yuuri was absolutely certain he could have run through the entire site with his eyes closed, based on memory of those maps alone. Now, it seemed that he was doing exactly that, only with the added complication of corralling three panicked people where he needed them to go. With only ten rounds left, Yuuri had to be extremely economical with his shots; he could only afford to fire when someone veered too far off course. And still, despite all that, it was _working_. Yuuri’s heart was pounding with each corner they turned, moving closer and closer to the rendezvous point. The rain was icy, but he hardly felt it against his skin, overheated beneath the kevlar. He could barely see with the water sluicing off his face, running into his eyes and mouth, but he could taste how near they were— _just_ as he fired his last shot.

The four of them burst out from between the freight containers into an empty lot.

Except…it wasn’t _supposed_ to be empty. Yuuri whipped his head from side to side, wondering if he had gotten something wrong, got turned around with the directions, but knew that wasn’t the case. _This_ was the rendezvous point, and they were alone. Takeda and his men should have been lying in wait already, the officers ready to take Park into custody; in the ensuing chaos, Yuuri would slip away and run back to the outer limits of the port, where he would meet Viktor and wait for Georgi to arrive with transport out.

“Viktor…” There was a sinking feeling in his stomach. “They’re not here.”

The line crackled in his ear, and he heard what might have been a curse from the other man through the piece. “ _Takeda was delayed but he’s on his way. I need you to stall, Yuuri. Two more minutes. We can’t let her get away._ ”

Yuuri was still holding up his useless guns, no ammo left in their chambers. Park and her men were watching him warily from some distance away; it wouldn’t take long before they figured out he was as defenseless as they. He had to act fast—he could either pretend he was still loaded and retreat to safety, before they decided to take him on, or he could drop the guns in favor of his knife and rush at them, taking advantage of their surprise.

Even as he contemplated both, his mind whirling a mile a minute, Yuuri knew there was only one option he could take. He couldn’t risk Park Min-so slipping away.

Instead of dropping his guns, he chucked them at the guards. His aim was wide, but the movement so startling that they threw themselves to the ground to avoid it, giving him enough leeway to unsheathe his knife. He could barely grip the handle so he took off one of his gloves, his fingers numb from the freezing rain. Park and her men had recovered, realized that he had lost his only true advantage in the fight, and began to advance on him like predators on the hunt. Their own knives were drawn, flashing cool silver when the blades caught the lightning flash.

The dark was both a blessing and a curse, made him as hard to hit as it was to hit them. Yuuri feigned to the side when one guard lunged at him, the knife narrowly missing his stomach, only to be met with a swipe at his neck from the other man. He twisted between them, backing up as they turned in unison towards him, losing ground as they crowded him up against a freight container. It was frighteningly obvious that they had trained and fought together before; their movements were synced, maximizing their strengths and covering for each other’s weaknesses. Yuuri shuddered as he dodged another attack, the knife hitting the steel beside his head. The metal-on-metal screech rang in his head.

He threw himself into the fight with abandon, his own knife grasped firmly as he aimed at their throats—hesitation meant failure, death.

Yuuri bodied one of the guards, catching him on his injured shoulder with a hard shove. The man howled in pain. He dropped his knife, reaching up to push Yuuri away from the wounded limb, but it was useless. Yuuri gripped his shoulder, thumb digging into the bullet wound to leverage himself against the larger body, and forced him on his knees before stabbing him in the throat. The man fell to the floor, dark blood gurgling on his lips.

He wasn’t so lucky with the last guard, who slammed into him with all the force of a moving car. Yuuri was knocked to the ground, his knife thrown some distance away, trapped beneath the weight of a man twice his size. His head had struck concrete and it _hurt_ , made him feel woozy and disoriented. He groaned as the guard stared him down, face shadowed and dark, knife glimmering as he brought it down. Yuuri tried to roll away from the attack, but didn’t manage to twist more than a few inches to the side. The blade made contact, but didn’t penetrate the vest, instead sliding off around the curve of his rib in a violent slash that ripped the cloth. Still, he felt the force of it come down against his chest and nearly retched, knew that he’d have a bruise there come morning if he lived that long. With some effort he reached up and clawed both hands into the man’s face, fingers scrabbling over its fleshy vulnerabilities. The man jerked back in surprise, waving his weapon wildly and cutting into Yuuri’s arms, but Yuuri managed to push him back and off. He scrambled up onto his knees and crawled to his own knife, turning over just as the man converged upon him again, stabbing upwards into the soft underbelly of the guard.

In that moment, it felt like everything was silent, save for his pounding head and beating heart. Park Min-so was in the periphery of his vision, and he could see her ashen face staring at him with unmasked fear. The knife in her hands trembled. Yuuri turned towards her, rising to his knees, and took a slow, deliberate step. The underboss backed up when he moved forward, and again, and again; they continued this pattern until she was the one pressed up against the freight containers, just as he was a few minutes ago. His ears were still ringing, possibly from a concussion, but there was a new sound in the distance—sirens, shrieking over the storm. Takeda was close.

“Viktor,” he said into the speaker, “I’m headed to the extraction point. Takeda will be here any second.” The noises were getting louder, almost on top of them; Yuuri could see the pulse of blue and red lights around the corner.

There was a drawn out silence on the line, and then, “ _No. Your orders are to stay with Park Min-so until she’s in police custody._ ”

Yuuri froze, disbelieving, and almost made the mistake of asking Viktor to repeat himself. Instead, he hissed, “Any longer and I won’t be able to get away.”

“ _I know,_ ” Viktor said, after a pause, “ _Listen, Yuuri—_ “

He didn’t get to hear the end of that sentence as police cars streaked through the night, coming around the corner of the lot from what seemed like every possible direction. The dizziness he felt earlier came back tenfold as the garish lights blared into his eyes and he dropped his arm, contemplating the idea of fighting back, struggling, doing _anything_ to avoid getting caught. But it was already too late. An officer slammed him into the ground not a moment later, wrenching his arms so far behind his back that Yuuri cried out, sure that something was dislocated. The earpiece crackled and fell out of his ear, crushed underfoot by another officer pulling him up by the back of his shirt and tossing him into the backseat of a squad car. From the corner of his eye, he saw Park, cuffed, being dragged by her own set of officers.

That was the last thing he saw before everything went black.

 

* * *

 

_I can’t breathe,_ was Yuuri’s first thought when he eventually came to. He gasped in a chestful of air, but found his nose and mouth obstructed by a thick layer of cloth. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but darkness, and it took him a long moment to realize that, no, he hadn’t gone blind in the aftermath of the fight. Rather, someone had stuffed his head into a coarse sack, one he could barely breathe through even as his lungs worked overtime, trying to get oxygen back up to his brain so he could _think, damn it._

His hands were still cuffed tightly at his back and he was lying on them quite awkwardly, sprawled out on his side atop a stiff leather seat. He was still in a car, that much he could tell from the rumbling beneath his body, but he wasn’t sure if he was still in police custody or not. Why would they put a sack over his head, if he were? That didn’t make sense.

With his head and chest throbbing, places where the bruises were already making themselves known, Yuuri shifted to get into a better position. There wasn’t one, not really, so he closed his eyes instead and groaned softly, clenching his teeth through the pain. How long had he been unconscious? It didn’t feel like more than a few seconds, a particularly languid blink, but the actual time was anyone’s guess. His clothes were still soaked through from the storm, so probably no more than a day, though it could have easily been a few hours since the port—

Since Viktor ordered him to stay.

He tried not to think about it, but there was no way to escape the thought raging in his head. Viktor let him get caught, for the sake of his plan. Yuuri didn’t know he had even expected differently until it actually happened, and was unprepared for how much it _hurt_ to be abandoned like that. He should have known better; any pain he felt was his own damn fault. So what if Viktor left him behind? Yuuri was still breathing, still had use of his limbs and his head. He would find a way out of this situation, or make one.

(He was fooling no one, not even himself.)

It was hard to focus on anything save his own racing pulse, each aggravated throb sending jolts of pain through his bruises. There was a heavy weight sitting on his chest, and he tried to convince himself that it was simply exhaustion taking over, rather than the steadily rising panic he was barely keeping at bay. An out—that's what he needed, to find some way to break loose from his cuffs and get out of the car, back to somewhere safe. He didn't even know where he was, let alone who had him. Whoever it was, they certainly weren't friends, not if they left him trussed up and unable to move in the backseat of their car.

"Shut the fuck up already!" A rough voice demanded from the front seat, one he didn't recognize. Yuuri wasn't even aware he was making noise, but he _was_ —little gasps of pain whenever the car hit a particularly rough patch of road. "Where are we supposed to be taking this guy again? He won't shut up."

"Relax," another voice said, in the same general vicinity of the first, "it's just up ahead. We'll get rid of him in no time. Think about all the money we're gonna be making, just for dropping him off with this guy."

"I just don't want to get caught with him in the backseat. The boss will have our asses if we get arrested for kidnapping," the first man said, but Yuuri was no longer paying attention. They were taking him somewhere, to someone who apparently paid a lot of money to have him. Yuuri was shaking, terrified, a hundred different people who could possibly want him dead flashing through his mind's eye. This could only mean bad news. Who was their boss? The _Geondal_? A rival Yakuza family? Who was bankrolling them? For a moment, Yuuri tongued the rubber-coated ampoule in his mouth, checking to see that it was still there. It would only take three minutes, at the most, for the cyanide to have full effect. Was three minutes of death better than the possibility of on-going torture? "We should have put him in the trunk.

"You heard the guy—he wants the prisoner returned in one piece. _Safe._ "

Yuuri didn't know they'd stopped until the car door opened. He was pulled up from his prone position, onto his feet; the sudden tug at his collar nearly choked him, and he gagged around the motion, coughing into the sack still pressed too close to his face. He heard the faint echo of their steps in a large space, felt hard concrete beneath the soles of his shoes, wondered once again where he was. One of the men shoved him forward, noticing his dragging feet, but Yuuri was just so tired. He didn't know how much longer he could keep standing, if his nausea was the effect of exhaustion or anxiety, if he should just bite into the ampoule _now_ and save himself the worry of what would happen next.

They stopped walking. Yuuri felt like he was floating in all that darkness, as if he were one step away from tumbling down the edge of a cliff. His palms tingled with the ache of nervousness. "You have the money?" One of the men asked. His body tensed, preparing itself for the worst, and then—

"Let me see his face."

_Viktor._

Something inside of him unspooled, and the effort it took not to go completely boneless in relief was monumental. Yuuri breathed heavily through his nose as one of the men pulled the sack over his head, dragging the coarse cloth over the tender skin of his face. He blinked, taking stock of his surroundings; they were in a deserted garage, smattered with cars, no one else around but the four of them. And Viktor was right _there_ , staring hard-edged at the men holding him, then at Yuuri's own face. For his part, Yuuri stared back, fixated on the sight of the other man standing immaculate in the dim light flickering overhead.

"I thought I said I didn't want him damaged."

The man holding him grunted, shoving Yuuri forward just a step, jarring his arms back painfully. He couldn't help the hiss that rushed through his clenched teeth. "Don't blame us. He got those on his own."

Viktor's eyes were cold, the blue of them nearly glinting as he glared at the two men. Without another word, they unlocked Yuuri's cuffs and let him tumble over, unsupported by their arms. Viktor reached for him, caught him mid-fall, his strong arms wrapped around Yuuri's torso to hold him up. He couldn't stop shaking now that he was free, his hands all but useless to do anything save for clutch onto the back of Viktor's expensive suit. He felt the other man shift in his arms, toss something to the ground before he dragged Yuuri towards a car parked in the shadows of the garage. From the corner of his eye, he saw a squad car speeding away from the lot with their lights off.

He had been maneuvered into the backseat by the time all his limbs had gone numb. Not for the first time, but certainly with the most acute clarity, Yuuri realized just how cold he was. The heat was running inside the car and it was scorching hot against his icy skin, still trapped under the layers of his soaking wet clothes, that kevlar vest. He was shaking, unable to let Viktor go. The other man was crouched over him, the dim lights coming down around his shoulders from the frame of the door, creating a penumbra around his silvery head.

Distantly, he heard Viktor calling out his name.

"Yuuri... _Yuuri..._ " There was a hand against his cheek, covered in body-warm leather. He turned into it without thinking, took in the deep, warm scent of it as if doing so would bring back some heat to his body. The other hand reached out, untangling Yuuri's limpet-like clutch over him, holding both wrists in his grasp. "You're okay now, I've got you." He blinked up at Viktor, but remained unresponsive, his teeth chattering in his mouth whenever he tried to speak. Nothing felt right. He couldn't get a handle on his heart, his throat was still constricted. He was safe—or _safer_ , at least—why was he still _shaking_? If he could, he would have folded himself up into a corner, away from the rest of the world. Viktor sighed above him, running a hand through his hair, as if he were inconvenienced. "I'm not sure what to do here. Should I just kiss you or something?"

Something simmered underneath his numbness. Anger. He was _angry._ Viktor was so casual, so unaffected! As if he hadn't ordered Yuuri to get caught, as if he were the one who was tossed unconscious into a backseat, driven off into the hands of a possible enemy. Yuuri hissed, pulling away and pulling him closer in the same motion, ending up sprawled on his back instead, Viktor looming over him. His signals were all crossed, confused.

Because, yes, he _was_ angry. But Viktor was so, so warm and so very _real_ —and Yuuri wasn’t willing to let go of the only thing in that moment that was keeping him from coming apart.

Before he could think too much about it, he reached up and pressed their mouths together with a hard tug. Yuuri gasped, his lips parting as Viktor’s solid weight fell into him, pressing him deep into the seat. Their teeth knocked together violently, with a clang just hard enough to sting. He pulled away with a wince, tasting the barest hint of blood, and was surprised when Viktor dragged him back up into the heat of his mouth.

And _god,_ was it hot—burning, suddenly, where their lips met. Yuuri was panting into the kiss, for that tongue licking long strokes into him, curling up against the roof of his mouth, tracing along the edges of his teeth. Yuuri’s hands scrabbled for purchase over Viktor’s body, finding it in his shirt collar and on the nape of his neck, tugging harder, wanting _more_. He closed his eyes, skin suffused with heat everywhere they touched; he let himself be suffocated in the warm press of darkness behind his eyelids as he arched beneath Viktor. Later, some part of him would have to remember to be ashamed at the desperate, needy way he clutched at the other man. But for now, all he could think about was having him _closer_. A whine left his throat unbidden when Viktor pulled away for air. Yuuri chased after him with his entire body, lips landing clumsily at the corner of his mouth. He ran with it, dragging his tongue between the seam of those parted lips, wet and _oh, so hot._

“Okay, okay,” Viktor breathed out, arms framing Yuuri’s body, palms flat against the backseat. He shifted, and Yuuri’s legs fell open to accommodate him, angular hips guided into the cradle of a plush lap. Yuuri groaned when Viktor pressed their mouths together again, angled better, somehow, so the other man could kiss him deeper.

“ _Ohh…_ ” The moan tumbled out of his lips when Viktor’s mouth travelled down, all heat as he trailed over Yuuri’s chin and along the line of his neck, nosing into the sensitive patch just under his jaw. His lips were closed tight around a patch of skin right above the collar of the kevlar vest, the wet pull of his mouth sure to leave a bruise there. Yuuri’s fingers dipped into the back of Viktor’s shirt. He traced a nail from the nape of his neck to the top of his spine, felt the shudder it caused, all that heated skin just a few layers away. _Want_ flared to life in his gut, calling for more, _more, more_ —

More of Viktor, his heat, his body, the way he kissed into the hollow of Yuuri’s throat as if he wanted to tattoo his lips there, the way his hips pinned him into place, tethering him to that moment.

With both hands he reached between their bodies and pulled apart the buttons of Viktor’s shirt, dragging him up by his tie so their mouths slotted together again. Viktor groaned, and the sound of it reverberated through his chest, where Yuuri could feel it and his racing heartbeat with the bare skin of his hands. Viktor moved to grab him by the waist, pulling Yuuri’s hips up to straddle his waist, pressing his palm into the dip of Yuuri’s spine to deepen that arch.

And still, it wasn’t enough. Yuuri had to get _closer_. His hands skittered across Viktor’s chest, fingers curling at the sides of his ribs as he pushed aside the ruined shirt. Viktor, it seemed, had the same idea. He pulled away from Yuuri and practically ripped off the straps holding the kevlar vest together, tugging it over Yuuri’s head in one swift motion. He made quick work of the combat blacks, too, rucking up the shirt and maneuvering Yuuri out of it within the span of a few heartbeats. They were chest to chest, now, breathing synchronized as their lips gravitated towards one another again. Yuuri wound his arms around Viktor’s neck, the rest of the world falling away until all he knew were the places where their bodies touched.

Their kisses were frantic, crazed; the only thing consistent about them was how they would inevitably come back together, as if separating even for air was too much. Viktor’s tongue was fucking into his mouth, a dirty _push and pull_ that had Yuuri sucking into the motion, wanting to swallow the taste of him whole. It was during one of these thrusts that Viktor dislodged the ampoule in Yuuri’s cheek, the rubber-coated capsule falling on his tongue. Yuuri started, pulling away quickly, but it was too late to close his mouth around it. Viktor had already drawn back, holding the thing between his teeth, then dropped it into his hand with a look on his face that Yuuri couldn’t read.

They were both frozen, the heated moment turning into solid ice as their eyes met. Yuuri’s heart was in his throat, and for the first time since they started kissing, he was able to fully look at Viktor. A flush swept high over his cheekbones, his hair ruffled and unkempt, his clothes a torn mess from Yuuri’s wandering hands. Viktor held up the ampoule to the light, its red rubber casing stark against the black of his glove. No explanation was needed; Viktor knew, as well as Yuuri did, exactly what it was.

“Were you going to use this tonight?” Viktor asked slowly, never breaking his gaze. Yuuri was powerless under that stare, couldn’t help but want to tell the truth, even as warnings blared inside his head to signal _no, no, pull back._ He nodded tersely, and watched as Viktor’s blue eyes flashed. The other man reached back and tossed the ampoule out the still open car door, his lips a thin line slashed across his face. “You won’t need that anymore,” he said, leaning forward again, crowding into Yuuri’s space, “I won’t allow it.”

This time, there was a new intensity to their kiss—something charged in the way Viktor laid him out flat on the backseat. Viktor shifted so one of his legs was braced against the car floor, the other folded under Yuuri’s ass to prop it up, grinding into the curve of it with hard circles of his hips. Yuuri gasped, breath shuddering out of his throat, his hands flying up to grip Viktor around the shoulders. The other man pressed into him, the hard line of his cock obvious even through layers of clothes, fitted neatly into the apex of his thighs.

Viktor’s hand snaked between their bodies, dipping just a fraction into his waistband. Yuuri went absolutely still. All the muscles in his back tensed as he raised his head, meeting Viktor’s eyes head on. They gazed down at him like two bright suns, their blue heat searing him down to the core. Gloved fingers rubbed gentle circles into his stomach, on the skin right above his belt. “You can say no,” Viktor said, voice hushed, waiting, “Tell me you want me.”

_I don’t, I don’t, I can’t._

Yuuri clenched his eyes shut, fingers tightening around Viktor’s shoulders as he tried to reign in his breathing. The moment was slipping away from him, and fast, reminding him exactly who this was. But his body still burned for it, his nerves stretched thin around the edge of his desire. The cold did not exist in Viktor’s arms, numbness vanished by his kiss.

_I do, I do, I do._

“ _Yes,_ ” he finally said, the word torn out of his lips in a gasp. Viktor surged forward to steal it from his mouth, fingers making quick work of Yuuri’s pants. Yuuri nearly choked when fingers wrapped around his cock, pushing down his waistband below the swell of his ass. It was almost painful how hard he was, how much he _ached_ from that small touch alone, nearly crying in relief as a thumb swiped over the head. Leather and sweat created a soft tug as Viktor moved his hand—strong, sure strokes down the length of it, sometimes pressing his finger behind Yuuri’s balls, into his perineum.

“ _Please, please…_ ” Yuuri wasn’t sure what he was begging for, at this point. All he knew was that he wanted something _more._

Viktor obliged, pulling away for a brief—still too long—moment, undoing the fastenings of his own pants. With a practiced move, he brought one hand up to his mouth and tugged the leather off, his white hand dipping into his own waistband to pull out his dick. Viktor draped himself over Yuuri again, who cried out as he began to stroke their cocks—together, against each other—his hand wrapped tight and naked around them both. Yuuri tossed his head back with a choked off sob. His legs came up to wrap more firmly around Viktor’s waist, crossed at the ankles, his heels digging into the meat of Viktor’s ass to press them both closer. It was so hot between their bodies, inside the car, their touches, their breath.

They were kissing again, filthy and open-mouthed. Yuuri dragged a ragged moan out of Viktor as he sucked on his tongue, entire body singing with pleasure as Viktor played him like a harp. The other man rocked them both together, the motion rough and needy, shaking the frame of the car as they moved. He reached over with his free hand to cup Yuuri’s face, thumb resting on the place where their lips met over and over and over again. It wouldn’t take long, Yuuri knew, not with Viktor touching him like _that_ —but he couldn’t stop fucking into Viktor’s fist, trying to rub himself up against the other man’s cock with every thrust.

Yuuri rolled his hips once, twice, and then he was _gone_ , lost in the sheer pleasure of coming undone in Viktor’s arms. He threw his head back and moaned his release over Viktor’s fingers, jerking his face away as the muscles in his legs and back tensed, every nerve in him white-hot with feeling. Viktor’s mouth was on the pulse at his throat, sucking into it in time with the beat, and he thrust into his own fist one last time before he followed, emptying himself out between their bodies.

Both of them were breathing hard. It was many long minutes before they could move again, sweat and cum quickly turning tacky across their stomachs. Yuuri was boneless in the backseat and didn’t have enough energy to work his way out from under Viktor’s body. It was like all the exhaustion of that day hit him at once, and soon he was drifting off, sleep calling out his name. His last thought as he sagged into unconsciousness was an emphatic, resounding, “ _Fuck._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Guns; drugs; graphic depictions of violence; murder; mentions of suicide; sexual content.
> 
> [1] _Bae ban ja_ meaning “traitor” or “turncoat” in Korean.
> 
> †Cyanide Pill: A small glass capsule carried in the mouth, about the size of a pea, filled with a concentrated amount of potassium cyanide. It’s wrapped in rubber so that if accidentally swallowed, it will pass harmlessly through the body. To use, an agent would bite down on the capsule and swallow.
> 
> **
> 
> Well, um, sorry this was so late again??? I’m terrible with deadlines—but I hope this made up for it lmao. I suffered over writing this chapter because I wanted it to live up to expectations! I’ve been planning this scene since the story got started so um, please, let me know what you think. I literally haven’t written porn in 5672920 years and I’m crying its so hard. Also, there’s not enough fucking-in-cars fic in this fandom and this is my lowly contribution. _(:’3」∠)__
> 
> ANYWAY, after 11 chapter, here we are. To quote Yuuri's last line, _"Fuck."_ Because they still got a long way to go. ;))))
> 
> Enjoy and thank you for your continued support! Your kudos, bookmarks, etc. mean everything to me. I love all your comments and I read them often, because you all are so nice and inspire me to write. Updating now on Mondays/Tuesdays. Find me at my YOI blog [witchsbane](https://witchsbane.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat/ask me questions/etc.!


	12. Nepenthe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nepenthe
> 
> 1\. Something that induces a pleasurable sensation of forgetfulness, especially of sorrow or trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at end of chapter.

_We’ll have to burn the tatami,_ Mari muttered to herself as she paced around the room, _and replace the paper on the shoji screens. I’ll sink the body in the ocean tonight. Everything’s gonna be okay, Yuuri, you’ll see. Big sister will protect you no matter what._

And she meant it, too, though admittedly it had taken her a few long moments to finally snap out of her stupor—enough time for the blood on Yuuri’s face to begin drying, for it to crust over underneath his fingernails. To her dismay, the first thing she _actually_ did was empty out her stomach onto the already soiled floor; the second was to bundle up her baby brother and climb with him into the nearest tub, drawing the shower curtain closed around them as if it could block out the rest of the world. They stayed there until their clothes were soaked through, red running pink running clear into the drain, their skin doing the exact opposite from how hot she’d cranked the water up.

She was shaking more than he was. Yuuri simply stared at the wall ahead of him, the warm depths of his eyes clouded over, looking inwards instead of out. That’s what scared her the most, even more than all that blood. How he’d just shut down, during and after, like someone had snuffed out all his lights. If anything, Mari would have preferred fighting, to see him kicking and screaming and crying about how none of it was fair, something, _anything_ that wasn’t this terrifying emptiness Yuuri had been left with. It shouldn’t have been so easy to pick him up and carry him away from the scene, to tilt his face towards the spray and scrub clean his bloodied cheeks. He didn’t even make a fuss like he usually did when she patted him dry and wrapped him in one of the onsen yukata, claiming he wasn’t a baby anymore.

_Mari-neesan_ , he would always whine, squirming in her grasp as she tied the obi around him. Then she’d laugh and pull him into a headlock, and all her careful work would come undone as her fingers found their way to his pudgy little belly, tickling until he finally gave.

There was none of that now. Yuuri was never this still and quiet, had always been a hyperactive sort of child, legs bouncing and arms flailing expressively with his nerves. It’s what made him so great at things like ballet and figure skating, all his energy poured into making something beautiful out of the natural rhythms of his body. Minako said that he’d go very far one day, that he had all the talent to become the best in Japan—maybe even the world, if Yuuri worked at it hard enough. Their parents didn’t understand, and neither did Mari if truth be told. But when they saw his toothy, beaming smile the three of them promised (to themselves and each other) to do anything to keep it there forever.

She failed, and quite spectacularly, too. There was nothing left of the little boy she loved in that face. It was hollowed out, now, and it was all her fault that he was gone, buried somewhere she couldn't reach no matter how many times she called out his name. "Yuuri, Yuuri please. Say something," she cried, rocking him back and forth under the shower head, but all he did was look right through her.

So she planned instead. Mari promised to take care of him and that, at least, she could still do. She tucked Yuuri into bed and told him to get some sleep, before she crept back into the shrine room to assess the damage. It was off-season at the onsen and for once she was glad for it, because it meant that no one was around but the two of them, the weather too hot for guests and their parents away for the weekend on business. It meant that no one had heard the commotion, and no one would see her clean up the mess, wiping all traces of the accident away as if it never happened at all.

It stank inside the room. A heavy, metallic stench drifted through the shoji screens even before Mari slid them open. There was a distinct _freshness_ to the smell that could only be likened to raw meat, dripping and red as an animal newly slaughtered. She gagged again, swallowing down the bile burning sharply in her throat, really looking for the first time at the unmoving mass in the corner of the room. The lump was unnaturally still, a tangle of bulky limbs in the fading light of the evening, a dark pool of blood slowly congealing beneath it.

Minami Kenichi was well and truly dead.

Just thinking about it sent a shiver along her spine, dread twisting wildly in her gut. Mari slammed the door shut, so hard that the wooden frames rattled down the hall with an echoing bang, breaking the overlay of silence that had settled about the room. At once, she was on her knees, shaking again, reeling from the sudden wave of vertigo that overtook her. The gravity of the situation was beginning to dawn on her—that rank smell, the sight of blood splattered on the walls and floor, the eerie absence of sound in a space occupied by two people—all of it forcing her to confront the reality of what had happened in that room, of what she had let happen.

The sob tore out of her like a wounded beast, clawing its way forcefully up her chest and past hermouth. She tried to muffle the sound behind her fingers, pressing them tight against her lips, but it leaked out anyway in pathetic little gasps and whimpers. It was harder to stop the tears, which stung her eyes and blurred her vision until she could barely make out the gruesome scene in front of her. Mari tilted her head back to keep them from falling, but it didn't work; they ran down her cheeks, slowly at first, then pouring out of her once the dam had broken in waves and waves of regret. She should have done something to stop it, if only she hadn't been so stupid, if only she hadn't been such a coward. How could she _freeze_ like that, while Yuuri stained his hands in blood for her? He was so strong in that moment, and she had simply fallen apart. And now, she couldn't even stop crying long enough to get the job done.

A small hand came to rest upon her back, and with it the quiet murmur of her name. “Mari…”

She started in surprise, whipping around to face the door. Yuuri was standing there, haloed by the low light streaming in from the corridor, looking baby soft in the oversized green yukata he wore. She hadn’t even heard him enter. “Yuu—ri,” she said, and the name broke open right at the center, “you shouldn’t be in here. Didn’t I tell you to go to sleep?” She pressed the meat of her palm into her eyes, staunching the aching urge to cry again. Yuuri knelt down beside her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. His still wet hair formed a damp spot in her shirt, his face tucked into the crook of her neck; this was something he did whenever he needed comfort, and the familiar pressure of his forehead against her collar threw her headfirst into a fresh wave of tears. “Yuuri, Yuuri, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he whispered back. There was a catch in his voice—the first hint of genuine emotion he’d shown all night, and Mari clung to him tightly in return. One part of her wanted to wipe that sadness away, and another wanted desperately to see more of it, if only to get back the Yuuri she knew. “I’ll protect you.”

“I’m the one who should be saying things like that.” She sniffled into his hair, which smelled perpetually of the sulfur and salt of the onsen, like her own skin and their parents’ and their grandparents’ before them. That distinctly _Katsuki_ smell that was an indelible mark of home, sunk deep into their skin from birth; it cut sharply through the stench of iron and gore, and she breathed it in, let it anchor her to what was important. This was Yuuri, still, her baby brother, would always be no matter what happened between them and how deeply he withdrew into himself. “I’ll take care of everything, okay, Yuu-kun? Go back to your room. I’ll be there in a bit.”

Yuuri shook his head, and Mari could feel the way he scrunched up his eyelids against her skin. “I can help,” he said, pinched, then more firmly, “I’m gonna help. ’S my fault.”

“Oh, no. No, baby,” she said, her grip on him so, so tight it was a wonder he could stand it. “Don’t ever think that, Yuuri. Please don’t ever, ever think that. It’s me, mine—“

“He was gonna hurt you,” Yuuri interrupted, that same emptiness creeping back into his voice. Mari sensed him about to withdraw, as if to curl in on himself, but she didn’t let him, held him tighter instead. He buried his face into the folds of her robe, breathing deep. “I had to stop him, Mari-nee. I had to. Please don’t hate me, please, please…”

“I know, I know. He won’t ever hurt anyone again,” she whispered, her love for him blooming like a flower in her chest. She laid a kiss on the crown of his head. “You were so brave, Yuu-kun. I love you so, so much. I love you, I love you, I love you.” The first sob was quiet, the next a great heave that rattled his entire chest, and finally a loud wail that struck the deepest part of her heart. Mari held him as he cried, relieved and afraid, Yuuri’s small body—already so strong—trembling in her arms. “It’s okay, Yuuri. Let it out. I’m here.”

Later that night, they stripped the walls bare and refitted each screen with a new roll of paper, peeled the tatami off the floor and burned it all in the backyard. A column of smoke rose up ominously into the sky, and they watched as the black cloud of it settled above their home. The body they wrapped in a faded blue tarp, heavy rocks tucked into each layer of the roll, which they then shoved into the back of an old pickup their parents had left “for emergencies only.” At full dark they drove down to the quietest stretch of beach they could find; living there for so long meant that it was second nature at this point, and they knew exactly where the tides would rise and suck the body into its rip current, drag it past the continental shelf and into open ocean. It crashed into the water and against a craggy outcrop, bobbed twice, before finally disappearing beneath the waves.

They didn’t talk about it—not then, and not when their parents returned home the next evening. The dead heat of summer dragged on for weeks without a single word, though they both fully expected to see news about the discovery of a dead body, maybe a missing persons case, whenever they turned on the television or opened the paper. They simply…pretended, going about their lives as if nothing had changed. If Yuuri had grown quieter, and Mari more agitated, then it went unnoticed amongst all their other troubles. Did they make enough last season? How many bookings did they have already, and how many more to break even?

Mari threw herself into the thick of work: cleaned furiously, balanced the books, scrimped and saved every yen the onsen could spare. She drove Yuuri to school, took him to practices, hugged him tight and watched him walk away until he vanished from her sight. Whatever he needed, Mari promised herself she'd provide. If ballet made him happy then she'd pay for class after class with her own savings. If it was skating, then she'd save up for new blades and costumes and competitions. Food? Friends? Maybe a new dog? Anything to see the smile reach his eyes again, rather than the distant expression he now wore, as if he were experiencing life secondhand. She was desperate, she knew, but what else could she do? All she had to offer was her arms and her back and her hands to work, so that one day she could fly Yuuri to a place where the nightmares wouldn't reach.

That small reprieve, whatever little there was to be had, didn't last.

It was late one evening at the tail end of summer, almost two months to the day of the accident. Business was picking up for the ryokan—already they'd gotten more bookings than the year before, and the stream of customers at the restaurant grew from the barely there trickle it was only weeks ago. Mari was in the kitchens when they arrived, chopping vegetables with their mother to prepare for the next day's rush, Yuuri asleep in his own room, and their father sweeping up out in the banquet hall. They heard the door slam open and Toshiya's startled yelp, which was followed by his usual boisterous greeting once he fully collected himself. "Hello! Welcome, gentlemen. I'm afraid the restaurant is closed for the night, but if you're looking for rooms—"

Suddenly, there was a loud crash. The sound of splintering wood and broken dishes, followed by angry shouts. Toshiya let out a pained, fearful cry that resonated even from the other room.

Mari's heart was running a marathon inside her chest, and her hand trembled around the knife. Hiroko put hers down on the cutting board, turning to Mari, expression carefully neutral as she spoke. "Take Yuuri and hide. Make sure the two of you are safe.”

“ _Mom…_ ” Mari’s voice came out a pitiful whine. She knew, _she knew_ exactly what this was about, who those men were, could feel it in her gut. “Don’t—“

“There’s no time to argue,” Hiroko interrupted, pushing her towards the hallway. The expression on her face was the most severe Mari had ever seen there, leaving no room for dispute, just action. “Go on, Mari. Yuuri needs you.”

And trust their mother to know the only thing that could have moved Mari in that moment. She nodded, still clutching the knife in her unsteady hands, racing off to the back of the inn where the family quarters were. It took her only a few seconds to shove into the dark of Yuuri’s room. He was rubbing his eyes sleepily as he sat up, his question coming out half a yawn. “What’s going on? I heard a noise…”

“ _Shhh,_ ” she whispered, creeping closer to the bed. Though shadowed, she saw the exact moment Yuuri’s eyes found the knife in her hands, his entire body going still as stone. It took a moment to coax him out from under the covers, and she wrapped her arms around his thin shoulders, which were shaking in his threadbare shirt. A scream cut through the air. Yuuri’s room was the closest to the banquet room—too close for comfort, really—but she still couldn’t tell who it was. Their mom? Their dad? All she knew was that they’d be found if they stayed there any longer. “Come here, Yuuri. We gotta stay quiet, okay?”

He nodded against her stomach, so she quickly pulled him out into the hall. It was empty, for now, though that wouldn’t last long. She could hear them thrashing about in the restaurant, breaking precious sets of china and smashing the furniture, ripping picture frames and ornaments from the walls. The voice she now recognized as their mother’s was steadily climbing in pitch. Yuuri stayed plastered to her side, his hand clawing into the back of her robe so hard that his blunt nails had begun to dig into her skin through the cloth. “Mari-nee…” Their mother was sobbing, totally incoherent, but clearly pleading.

Mari knelt down so their eyes were at level, taking hold of Yuuri’s wan face. His cheeks were clammy against her hands, flushed out of blood, his bottom lip wobbly. “Yuuri,” she said, as quietly and urgently as she could, “you’re gonna have to be brave for me again, okay? I’m gonna hide you in the closet, and no matter what you hear, you have to promise me that you won’t come out.” He was shaking his head, fear giving way to a familiar blankness, as if he were emptied out of feeling. That look hit her like a punch to the gut. “Please, Yuuri? I need you to promise me—otherwise I won’t be able to help mom and dad.”

There was another scream, this one more terrified than the last. Mari didn’t have time to think it over; she shuffled Yuuri into the nearest storage room, left a parting kiss on his forehead and shushed him one last time. The last thing she saw before she turned around were his wide eyes, peeking through a slat in the door.

The handle of the knife dug into her palms, but she didn’t dare loosen her grip, knowing that she’d lose her nerve along with it. Every step she took brought her closer to the banquet hall, to the crying and crashing inside. Their mother had quieted down, her gasping sobs muffled behind the shoji screens; she hadn’t heard a peep from their father since that first startled shout.

Someone unfamiliar was speaking in a cool, even tone. Everything about it felt wrong, and it sent an unpleasant quiver down Mari’s spine. “I know you’re lying,” the stranger said, a man, from the sound of it, “and there’s nothing I dislike more than dishonesty. Where is your daughter? I know she’s here.”

“She’s not,” Hiroko babbled, “Mari’s away on a trip. Please, please let him go. You’re hurting him.” She’d never heard her mother like that—so fragile, like she was breaking apart, all her warmth replaced by terror. “We’ll give you whatever you want, just please leave our family alone.”

“I _want_ to know where my son is. He was hiding in this backwater town, last I heard, with that backwater daughter of yours at that. But enough is enough. It’s time for him to come home and face his responsibilities like a man. I will no longer allow him to run from them anymore.” Mari felt the world tilt fully on its axis, her stomach twisting into savage knots. There was something so utterly _wrong_ about this situation, and even more dangerous than she had first believed. All this trouble for one man’s son… _Who the hell was Minami Kenichi?_ “Maybe you need a little more convincing.”

There was a pause as someone in the room shuffled, then Hiroko grew even more hysterical. “No, _no!_ Stop it, please, let him go! He didn’t do anything—“

“Come out here, you little whore,” the stranger snarled out, ignoring the sobs. Mari heard the ominous _click_ of what could only be a gun. Her blood ran cold, freezing her in place, the knife trembling in her hands. Could she do it, if she had to? Kill this man, whoever he was? She didn’t know, and even admitting that in the space of her own mind made her sick, because _Yuuri_ had killed for her already. Weak, she was so fucking _weak._ “You have five seconds before I blow your father’s brains out. One. Two.” Her palms were sweating as she clutched the kitchen knife even tighter. “Three. Fou—“

“ _Stop!_ ” She slammed into the room, legs finally unfrozen, and everyone turned to the door in varying degrees of shock. Hiroko burst into more frantic sobs at the sight of her, and her father…he was lying on the floor, sheet white. For a moment, Mari’s heart stopped, reminded of another lifeless body in their house, a pool of blood dark and tacky beneath it. It took her a moment to realize that, no, he wasn’t dead yet. Their father was still breathing, simply injured, a sizable gash splitting open a good section of his hairline. “I’m here,” she said weakly, “I’m here.”

The stranger was an older man, their leader, it looked like, from how he commanded the room. His dark hair was peppered with gray, cropped short and close to his head, receding slightly into a high peak. He was scowling at her, eyes narrowed in an expression that looked permanently fixed into the crease of his brows and the lines around his mouth. In his traditional outfit, with his incredibly severe face, surrounded by the timeless atmosphere of the ryokan, the man looked every bit like something from the distant past, as if he had stepped out of Hasetsu Castle in its prime. Except, of course, for the gun he was pointing at her father’s head.

“Where is my son?” The stranger bothered with no introduction. He didn’t need to, when Mari knew exactly who he was talking about. 

She swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat. “He’s not here,” she said, voice steadier than she had expected it to come out. “He hasn’t been here in a long time. I don’t know where he is.”

“Don’t lie to me, girl. I’ve been keeping an eye on him since he ran off, and I know this is the last place he was seen. Tell me where he is. Now.” He cocked the gun again. The clicking sound was so much louder now that she was in the same room, the weapon a weightier presence that kept drawing her gaze. She repeated herself, again and again, but it fell on deaf ears. The sick feeling roiled in her stomach. “I’m losing my patience quickly, girl. I’ll ask one more time, before I start shooting your family one by one. _Where is my son?_ ”

The stranger stepped forward and planted his geta on the side of her father’s face, grinding the heel into his cheekbone. A pained moan slipped past Toshiya’s bloodied lips; his eyelids fluttered rapidly as he wavered in and out of consciousness. Mari’s own heart was beating so fast that it physically _hurt_ , like it was trying to leap out of her chest through sheer force alone.

She opened her mouth to say something, and then—

“I killed him,” a small voice came from the open doorway, “It was me.” Mari whipped around, a startled, _“Yuuri!”_ choking out of her when she caught sight of her brother standing there. 

The entire room froze. It was so quiet that the air itself was buzzing, Yuuri’s words beginning to fully sink in. Hiroko jumped up from where she was crouched in the corner of the room, calling out Yuuri’s name, but was pulled back to the floor by one of the other men. The stranger was hard-eyed, his mouth curling back slowly into an awful, _vicious_ snarl. And Mari, all she could do was stare at him, unable to move as he stepped more fully into the room.

_You’re gonna have to be brave for me again,_ she had told him, but didn’t mean it like _this_

“What do you mean _you’ve killed him_?”

Yuuri wavered, before steeling himself, lifting his chin up like he always did when he was about to perform. He looked far older than his scant ten years in that very moment, and Mari knew exactly what he planned to do, could only watch in horror as it unfolded in front of her eyes.

Like a movie, like some terrible cliche—

“I killed him,” Yuuri repeated. “If you’re gonna hurt anyone, it should…it should be me.”

The knife dropped from her hands. Mari felt her entire body seize, then jolt forwards in an instant, ready to throw herself in front of her baby brother and act as his shield. There was a steady chant of _no, no, no_ in the room; it took her a second to realize it was coming from her own mouth. Someone grabbed her hair, pulling her back until she was sprawled on the floor beside their mother, who had fallen into stunned silence. Mari yelped, thrashing in the grip, clawing at the meaty hand holding her in place.

_No, no, no, no, no._ _This can’t be happening._

The stranger walked past Toshiya's limp body until he was standing in front of Yuuri, and grabbed him roughly by the chin. "You?" His tone was intentionally unreadable, a fact which only made Mari more nervous. She twisted further against the guard's grip but couldn't manage to get free. Yuuri was staring at the stranger head on, defiant, _brave_ , her mind supplied, and she cursed herself for not telling him to run instead. "How did you manage to do that?" Yuuri said nothing, didn't need to apparently, because the stranger turned to his guards and made a gesture with his free hand. "Take him."

" _No!_ " Mari shouted, followed by Hiroko echoing her distressed cry. "You can't take him! Please, I'm begging you, it wasn't his fault. He's just a kid. Take me! Take me instead, please—"

The guard tossed her to the floor, where she bounced off against the sharp corner of a table. Her mother cried and crawled over, cradling Mari's head in her lap, dabbing at the newly formed wound with her apron.

"You should be glad I have no need for daughters at the moment," the stranger said mildly. Yuuri let out a startled yelp as he was tossed over a guard's shoulder, his wiry body easily manhandled into submission. They shoved a sack over his head, lashing his hands behind his back painfully, before leaving out the front door. To Hiroko, the stranger continued, "Your son belongs to me now. Go to the police, and I'll send his head back to you in a box."

Mari's vision was swimming, fuzzy around the edges. All the sounds in the room were growing more and more distant with each passing second. "For how long?" She mumbled, though she couldn't be sure it came out right, her tongue like lead inside of her mouth. Still, the stranger seemed to understand what she meant.

"Until his debt is paid.”

 

* * *

 

Yuuri awoke to the sound of footsteps in the room. They were gentle and sock-clad against the hardwood floor, accompanied by the shuffling of a body in motion. He was warm, too warm, really, surrounded by the comforting press of something soft wrapped around his aching body. _A blanket,_ his tired mind helpfully supplied, and he almost rolled into the luxurious pleasure of it with a long sigh, eager for rest, before memories of the last night came back to him in bits and pieces.

He tried not to freeze, to remain calm instead, breathing as naturally as he could without exposing the tremor that ran through his spine. He remembered the rain, and the warehouse, and the gunfire. Park Min-so’s pale face stood out in sharp relief in his memories, cut into strange silhouette by the red-blue lights of the approaching squad cars. The pressure of steel cuffs ghosted around his wrists, though he knew they weren’t there anymore, had been removed in that garage— _God._

Warmth bloomed across his neck and chest as those moments in the car resurfaced, coming back like some half-dreamed thing: skin and breath, a hard body pressing into him from the front, trapping him against sticky leather seats. And his own voice like he’d never heard it before, asking for _more_ ; it was almost as if he were somebody else when Viktor touched him, and the more he remembered, the more ashamed he felt about how easily he’d surrendered himself. 

_Will you bow like this for that filthy rosuke, too_ , the _kumicho_ had asked. Well, Yuuri had already done much worse.

All those years he’d spent keeping his distance, trying not to become the _plaything_ so many assumed he already was—fallen away in the face of his own desperation to feel real, to be touched.

The heat mirage quality of his memories sharpened further the longer he stayed awake, turning into something full-fledged and tangible. Though too tired to act on it, or even respond, his body simmered with the now all-too-familiar arousal tugging low in his gut. He recalled the feeling of coming undone, the total unravelling of his nerves being played by experienced hands, how _good_ and _white-hot_ it felt to be there—all of it warring against the utter surge of _revulsion_ swelling like a sickness in his chest.

“I can tell you’re awake,” Mila said, her bright voice interrupting the spiraling descent of his thoughts.

With some effort, Yuuri opened his eyes and found them immediately assaulted by the harsh daylight slanting in through the windows. He was back in the suite, in his own bed, though with no recollection of how he’d gotten there in the first place—and it was with another mortified lurch of his stomach that he realized he had Viktor to thank for that as well. Mila was a smudge of red hair in his vision, sitting off to his right, her features completely lost to him until he blinked back the moisture into his contacts.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” he responded bluntly, wincing when the words dragged out through his raw throat. Mila nodded sympathetically and handed him a glass of water from his bedside table as soon as he was able to sit up. It went down cool though already lukewarm, and he drank it in greedily. “How lo—ong,” he wheezed, voice faltering over the long syllable, “was I out?”

Now that he was fully conscious, it seemed that his body was determined to make up for all that time he spent blissfully unaware of how much everything _hurt_. All the muscles in his arms and legs and back ached; he could feel the tender bruises on his side, where the knife had struck the kevlar vest, and on the curve of where his head hit concrete. There was a restrictive pressure atop his chest, so that even _breathing_ felt difficult, left him exhausted and sweating into the sheets now tangled about his waist. 

“Two days,” she said. “You had a mild fever last night, but it broke just before morning. You’ve been unconscious since Viktor carried you back here, so we were getting a little worried.”

Yuuri blinked, wanting to be, though not exactly surprised. It seemed that his body was more honest than he was in this, too. He needed that rest, and probably more, to recuperate from the last few weeks of constant _go-go-go_ , that nonstop and headfirst dive into danger that his life had become since Sochi. After all, there was only so much a body could take before it collapsed, no matter that it was used to pain; he could feel himself on the very fringes of that endurance, and it was clear that he had given in to it that night. He could only be grateful, then, that it was in the relative safety of his contractor—a man form whom Yuuri was more useful alive than dead, who had a vested interest in making sure he could still work. Another tremor ran through him at the memory of the last time he had woken up, incoherent and immobilized in the back of an unfamiliar car. He touched his face to make sure that the sack wasn’t still there, finding only his own skin beneath his fingertips.

The move wasn’t lost on Mila, though she said nothing, much to her credit, as he tried to reorient himself back to reality. Not for the first time, Yuuri wondered how deeply she was in Viktor’s confidences. Did he tell her about his plans? About what happened afterwards? How much did she really know about what lurked behind those cool blue eyes? It was hard to get a bead on her; unlike Georgi, who wore his emotions plainly, Mila adopted a teasing veneer that said nothing about her true feelings.

She was wearing it, even then, as she reached out for him. Yuuri flinched back when her hand drew near—a reflexive move that he’d never quite shed, muscle memory from his younger years when that gesture meant only a hard slap across his face—and felt the tiniest pinprick of guilt when her smile dropped off abruptly.

“I should check your temperature,” she said.

“I’m fine.” Though Yuuri wasn’t sure if that was really the case. Still, the thought of being touched at that very moment seemed downright repulsive to him. He felt one small shiver away from falling apart, the nausea from earlier staved off, but not completely gone. The last time anyone had fussed over him like this was years ago, when he still lived at the onsen and was still young enough to tuck in beside his mother; she used to rub a cool cloth across his fevered skin when he got sick, pressed kisses to his forehead as she fed him spoonfuls of rice porridge. Yuuri felt his eyes close at the memory, found it suddenly difficult to distinguish between _then_ and _now_. When he opened them again, Mila was looking at him in slight concern, and he coughed to change the subject, asking instead, “Everything went as planned?”

Mila nodded, looking appeased for the moment, and settled back against her chair. The discussion turned back to more familiar topics for both of them, allowing Yuuri to gradually come back into the present, his head beginning to throb where the bruise was. "Park's in police custody now. They broke the news this morning so the media's been having a field day trying to get an interview with Takeda, who, of course, is soaking up the attention. I hear INTERPOL is already looking to get involved, so it's only a matter of time before this hits the international circuit." Her smile returned, this time wider and with a sliver of white teeth showing. She patted the bedspread closest to his knee, careful not to touch him. "You did good, Yuuri. Really. Viktor's pleased with you.”

He couldn’t decide if that made him feel better or worse. If anything, it only made him _angry_ , that spark of rage he’d had in the car rekindled into full force once more—good, yes, but evidently not enough to be brought out of the dark. He clenched his fists, nails digging into the soft meat of his palm, and spat, “Is he now?”

It came out more bitterly than he intended, judging by the startled look on Mila’s face. “He didn’t tell you, did he?” She asked, and it wasn’t difficult to figure out what she meant, her eyes roving over his accumulated injuries in a new light.

“That he changed the plan literally at the last minute?” He shot back. _Or that he arranged to have me caught, like a fucking animal?_ “No.”

“ _Блин_ , Viktor…” Mila swore underneath her breath, directed more at the room in general than at him. “I told him to—, he never listens—“ Turning to Yuuri with her wide blue eyes, Mila sighed, deflating a little as she took on a deeply apologetic look. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t know why he didn’t say anything, but it wasn’t entirely his fault. Takeda had some trouble getting the squad cars to meet you, something about justifying the manpower. Viktor didn’t find out until it was almost time for the rendezvous. They might not be good ones, but...if nothing else, I trust his instincts. Viktor always has his reasons, even if he doesn’t always tell us what they are.”

Yuuri looked away, trying to wrap his head around it all, but the anger refused to subside. It built up inside of him, swelling like water against the weak spot of a dam, ready to burst in a sweeping fit of violence. This wasn’t Mila’s fault, though. She didn’t deserve him lashing out at her, not when she had taken care of him at his most vulnerable, rather than leaving him alone. For that, at least, he was grateful. “You’ve known him for a long time?”

He saw her nod from the corner of his eye, another small smile curving at his lips. “Since I was just a girl,” she said. “We met when I was…eleven? Twelve? That makes it around seven years that we’ve known each other.”

Throat feeling suddenly parched again, Yuuri reached for his water, holding the glass tight to disguise his shaking fingers. “So young,” he murmured, and thought, _just like me_. Except Mila seemed infinitely more satisfied with her place in this world, held no qualms about working for Viktor or his family that he could see. Of course, not everyone was like him, working as the boss’ dog for daring to take the life of a beloved son. Mila chose her own path, lived and breathed the blood of it willingly, and that alone set her worlds apart from him.

Mila shrugged. “It was either this or the streets,” she said frankly, “and Russian winters aren’t very friendly, especially to little girls without homes to go back to. I wouldn’t have lasted for very long if Viktor hadn’t taken me in and vouched for me with the _Papa._ I owe them both a lot for everything I have now.”

A debt, then—that much he understood, at least. Yuuri nodded, unsure of what to say in response to her candidness. It could have very well all been lies, but what did she stand to gain by doing so? For all she knew, Yuuri was simply another coldblooded hitman living from contract to contract, his loyalties bound to the person with the deepest pockets. She had more to lose by revealing this part of herself to him, however inconsequential it was, than whatever she hoped to glean about his own life or the _kumicho_ ’s.

Rather than say all this, however, he replied, “You trust him with your life.”

“I do,” she said, emphatic, “and so should you. I know you haven’t been with us for very long, but believe me when I say that Viktor takes care of his own. He doesn’t leave people behind.”

“I’m not one of his.”

Mila smiled, then, as if he said something particularly funny. Rising from her seat, she grabbed a parcel from off the floor, which he just noticed had been sitting there the entire time. “I told you, didn’t I,” she said, “he was interested in you _before_ , but it’s different now. Whatever you did out there—you’ve proven yourself to Viktor, and that goes a long way around here.” With practiced ease she tossed the parcel into his lap, striding off towards the door, and throwing him a long glance back as she exited the room. “You should get some more rest. Viktor will be by to see you later tonight.”

Alone once more, Yuuri gazed at the innocuous looking parcel she handed him. It was heavy, something irregularly shaped bundled up in the padded brown envelope. He was almost afraid to open it, not sure what it could possibly contain, fingers trembling as he broke the seal holding it together. Yuuri tipped the envelope onto the bedspread, and out tumbled two sleek guns from its depths. They were familiar—the very same guns he'd dropped in the struggle with Park Min-so's guards. He hadn't dared hope that he would ever see them again, simply assuming that they'd be lost to the bureaucracies of the National Police and left to gather dust in some evidence locker. But here they were, the comforting weight and grooves of them like old friends in his hands.

Some unfamiliar emotion _twisted_ through his chest. The sheer force of it alone nearly sent him doubling forward, a rising tide that threatened to consume him. Yuuri breathed in sharply and clutched the guns closer to himself, screwing his eyes shut. It wasn't long before sleep overtook him again, too exhausted to think, to figure out what any of it really meant.

 

 

It was to a gentle rapping at his door that Yuuri awoke to next. The sound of it echoed through the room, which was much darker than the last time he opened his eyes. In a small fit of panic, he reached beneath his pillow, instantly calming when he brushed up against the cool metal of his guns, tucked safe beneath his head. They weren't loaded, but their presence did wonders in slowing down his overactive mind; if he were in any real danger, they wouldn't let him have any weapons at all.

The door creaked open just as Yuuri sat up from the bed. Soft light spilled in through the seams of the room, pooling around Viktor's silhouette in the doorway, dark yet unmistakable. He didn't bother turning on any of the lights, simply striding towards Yuuri with perfect ease and settle at the very edge of the mattress. Closer, Yuuri could make out his fine features, the shadows tangled in the silver of his hair and across his cheekbones, and felt a pang of longing that he quickly smothered.

"You're up," Viktor said, his even tone sounding so much louder than it actually was in the hushed room. Yuuri nodded, though remained silent as Viktor's hand came up to cup the back of his head; he forced himself not to move, knowing that if he unlocked any of his muscles then he'd be on the other side of the room by now. He didn't want to show how unsettled he was by that touch, by their closeness. It was almost as if, since that night, the boundaries between them had eroded even further. Viktor held no reservations about encroaching on Yuuri's space before, but now it seemed like the calculated sharpness of it had shifted into something else—something heavier, more charged.

Was it a touch of expectation? Would he demand Yuuri in his bed, now that the line had been so thoroughly crossed?

Except—Viktor had given him a choice, back then. _You can say no,_ the other man told him, _tell me you want me._ And Yuuri _did_ , begged for it even, capitulated to the tension that had been building between them for weeks. The world had shrunk down into the confines of that car, and they the last two people who existed there, and all Yuuri could think about was how desperately he _wanted_ for the first time in his life. But without the threat of death looming above their heads, with his mind clearer, could he still say the same?

( _Yes, god, yes, yes, yes._ )

No, absolutely not. 

Resolutely, Yuuri pulled back and tried to reinstate some distance between their bodies. For his part, Viktor allowed him to, let his hand fall to the wayside, though his piercing stare never left the contours of Yuuri’s face. The spot where he touched _ached_ , and Yuuri tried to convince himself it was pain from the bruise that must surely be there, tender beneath the cover of his hair. “I have dinner waiting for us outside,” Viktor said, rupturing the awkward silence. “Can you walk there on your own?”

“You have a bad history with inviting me to dinners,” Yuuri couldn’t help but jab, then flushed at his own gall. He must have still been half-asleep to say something like that to Viktor.

But the other man just smirked, rising from the bed gracefully and heading towards the door. “No surprises this time,” he promised, though Yuuri didn’t believe him, before finally leaving the room. 

Viktor left the door open, so even if Yuuri had a say in the matter, he wouldn’t have been able to go back to sleep. Getting up from the bed was more difficult than he anticipated however. Two days spent on his back had sapped all the strength from his limbs, which shook with his attempts to stand. It took him even longer after that to take his first step, barely keeping himself upright when a wave of vertigo sent him swooning onto the chair where Mila had previously sat. He could only be glad that Viktor wasn’t there to see him in this pathetic state—the famed Demon of Japan, laid low by a common cold.

The _kumicho_ would have tossed him out on his ass days ago.

He almost laughed when he caught sight of his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. Wiping it clean of steam, Yuuri stared for a long time at the wet hair plastered across his forehead and the dark circles underneath his eyes and the sallow skin of his cheeks. Even if Viktor had wanted him before, he certainly would have changed his mind after seeing Yuuri like this, looking like the walking dead.

His fingers curled white around the porcelain rim of the sink. For some reason, that thought stung more than he expected it to. He never liked seeing his own reflection in the first place, avoided it unless strictly necessary. It was unnerving to see himself dolled up for his missions, so far removed from where he thought he’d be at this point in his life that it was almost like gazing upon a stranger, wearing his face but so utterly alien as to not be recognizable. Now it was even worse, ugly from the inside out and barely human at all.

Was this what Mari saw when she looked at him last? What she actually meant when she said he’d changed? Five years ago, right after Lohengrin, did she notice it then too? He’d been at his lowest and weakest when he crawled back home, knowing that he’d lost his last chance to slip quietly back into his old life. Something inside of him was irrevocably twisted after that mission, from having disappointed the people he loved most in the world. If they knew what he’d done, what he had to do to survive and keep them safe, they’d hate him for it. They’d think he was a monster, and rightfully so. He wondered if it was written that obviously on his face back then, like it was now.

Viktor, of course, he didn’t love like that. Yet the idea of disappointing him still stung fiercely. Yuuri could barely admit to himself that he wanted the other man, but what did a dog like him have to offer? His skills—already bought and paid for. His body—bruised and scarred and barely functioning. It felt like the most acute failure, seeing himself like this, his own weaknesses a brand that betrayed him as _ugly—rotten—pathetic_.

He barely felt the sting as his fist cracked against the mirror, his blood running down the splintering glass.

Though Viktor most certainly did not miss the new bandage wrapped around Yuuri’s knuckles, he said nothing, merely gesturing to the seat across him. The table was tucked into an intimate corner of the living room, with an elaborate meal fitted atop that looked good enough for the pages of a magazine: steak and fish, roasted vegetables, a hearty green soup, all of it served in fine china. There were two wines to choose from, a red and a white, the first of which Viktor was already sipping as he waited for Yuuri to join him.

They ate quietly for a while. Yuuri fixed his eyes on his plate, avoiding Viktor’s unwavering stare. Though he had no appetite, he tried to eat as much as he could, his body starving after two days of sleep and sickness. “You’re looking better,” Viktor said after a while, just as Yuuri finished off the sour green soup that served as their appetizer.

“Ye—es.” Yuuri winced as his voice broke out into a sputtering cough. He forced himself to look up, trying to regain a little dignity, brown eyes immediately locking with blue as he did so. “Mila said I was out for a few days.”

“An exciting few days, at that,” Viktor said, smile sharp enough to cut. “Takeda Yoichi has won the heart of this country. It seems like he really shines on camera.” Reaching into his suit jacket, Viktor pulled out his phone, tapping the screen a few times before sliding the sleek device across the table. A video was already playing for Yuuri.

It was a news segment, he quickly realized, from one of the local stations broadcasted in Fukuoka. He recognized the anchor as one his father used to watch a long time ago, back on the public television in their restaurant—a woman in her late fifties, her dark hair pulled into a severe bun, her face set into an even more severe expression as she spoke in rapid-fire Japanese through the speakers.

_“…in a statement made by the Kyushu Regional Police Bureau, the prescription pills found on site are estimated to be worth over ¥ 200,000,000 in total. The arrest was made on Friday night, after officers received an anonymous tip that broke open this international drug operation, spanning from Japan to the United States…”_

A new clip began playing, showing a panoramic view of the warehouse and docks where the drop had occurred. It looked strange to see it in the daylight, with the police milling around behind bright yellow caution tape. The footage cut out after a few more seconds, this time flashing to the confiscated pills, some of which were spilling out onto the floor from parcels riddled with bullet holes. Yuuri could see, faintly, where they had mopped up the blood.

_“…now going live to a press conference with the Director General of the Kyushu Police, Takeda Yoichi.”_

The screen changed again, fading into a small room filled wall-to-wall with buzzing reporters and cameramen. At the front was an official looking podium, emblazoned with the National Police Agency’s logo, and behind that were banners that spanned ceiling to floor. Takeda walked out not long after from the side of the room, mouth set into a firm line but eyes shining. He was dressed smartly in his formal blues, his salt-and-pepper hair styled into a neat quiff. As soon as he stepped up to the podium, the room rose up in applause, greeting him like some conquering hero. Like Mila and Viktor said, Takeda preened at the attention, puffing out his chest as the crowd settled back into their seats.

_“Thank you, thank you. As of Friday night, we have apprehended and charged a major distributor working out of Kitakyushu. With the hard work of our officers, we’ve managed to take a large shipment of illegal prescription pills off the black market—a hard blow to one of the biggest drug running operations we’ve seen in the last twenty years.”_

There was another wave of applause, and Takeda rode it out before continuing his speech.

_“In an initiative led by the Japanese government, and with the help of the ICPO, we are poised to take down some of the main distribution centers for drug trafficking across the globe. We want to send a united message to these criminals that we will_ **_not_ ** _back down in our pursuit to clean up our streets once and for all.”_

The video ended shortly after, freezing on a close-up frame of Takeda’s smarmy grin. It made Yuuri sick to know how terrifyingly false all this was, that one of the most powerful men in the country was under a mob boss’ thumb, Russian though it may be.

Viktor reached for his phone, plucking it out of Yuuri’s hands and slipping it back into the lining of his suit. “It was picked up by the NHK this morning, so it will probably hit the international circuit sometime this week. News travels fast, especially with the internet.”† Then he laughed briefly, tilting his head to the side. “Maybe it will even go viral. That was such a passionate speech, from what little I understood. Takeda certainly has a face for the cameras, да?”

Yuuri leveled him a look. “So it’s all going according to your plan?”

“Don’t you love it when that happens?” Viktor refilled his wine, swirling it around his glass once, twice, then taking a long and satisfied sip. “The news will reach Seung-gil and his men one way or another, and Mila’s already given Takeda what he needs so he can start the raids next week. Once Seung-gil hears that Takeda’s suspect is _cooperating_ with the police and starts putting the pieces together, it won’t be long before he goes after her himself. And as soon as he leaves the country—“ Viktor set his glass down abruptly, so hard that Yuuri thought it might shatter for a moment, “—he’s mine.”

“ _But why?_ ” Yuuri blurted out before he could stop himself. He floundered to take the question back as soon as it slipped past his lips. “I mean, you don’t have to—“

“They broke our alliance. Isn’t that reason enough?”

Yuuri snapped his jaw shut. It was almost unreal how fast his heart was racing, but he had to ask the question that had been nagging at him this entire time. This was a dangerous line to tread; one wrong step might lead Viktor right to him. Maybe he'd say the wrong thing, incriminate himself by revealing just how _much_ he knew about that night, the reason why their families had splintered apart. But he burned with curiosity. "Normally I'd say _yes,_ " Yuuri began, picking over his words carefully, "but I doubt this is the first time someone's reneged on a deal, even with you. Have you gone after each of them like _this_? Because I'm beginning to think _this_ is about more than getting even." He swallowed dryly, then forced himself to spit out the question. "It's about more than revenge, isn't it? This is _vengeance_ , and you're willing to risk your life, Mila's and Georgi's lives for it."

"And yours," Viktor said, "You want to know the reason I was so willing to risk yours."

It was a statement, not a question.

Yuuri jerked back as Viktor's hand darted out, catching him by the wrist, where the skin still remembered the cool bite of steel. His knees hit the underside of the table, rattling the fine china on top, and still the other man didn't let him go. _I know exactly what I am to you,_ is what he wanted to say, but what came out was, "So you _did_ plan it out like that." He tamped down the twinge of betrayal that tugged at his heart; he had no right to expect otherwise.

"No," Viktor replied, "but I was prepared for the possibility—I wasn't exactly sure how the night would turn out."

"Why not just tell me from the start? Why wait on something that important?"

"Because I wasn't sure about _you_ ," Viktor said bluntly. His voice lost all its cool charm, replaced with a tone hardened into steel. "I needed to know if I could trust you to carry out my orders, even when you don't fully understand them. More importantly, I wanted to know where your loyalties lay—with yourself, or with me."

"So...in the garage..." Yuuri felt the words back up inside of his throat, nearly gagging on them. He couldn't wrap his tongue or head around what he wanted to say. Viktor's fingers were tight over his wrist, skin-on-skin without the soft leather glove between them, conjuring up images of that night in the car. Where Yuuri had begged for him—for _Viktor—_ who had done it all as a _test._ A nauseous feeling roiled in his gut, made him want to empty his stomach out of everything he'd just eaten. "You were trying to  _test_ me?"

"If that's how you want to put it," Viktor said easily, loosening his grip just enough to turn Yuuri's wrist over; his thumb rubbed small circles across the thin skin there, right over the jackhammering pulse beneath. "You've done exceptionally well so far, Yuuri. You should reconsider my offer."

"Your offer?" Yuuri's voice sounded strange, alien, like it didn't belong to him at all.

He felt, more than saw, the soft curve of Viktor's mouth on his wrist. A hot breath skittered along his skin, an even hotter tongue darting out to briefly taste the network of fine veins there. Even if he wanted to, Yuuri couldn't have pulled away; Viktor's grip was just loose enough that he should have jerked his hand back, but all energy seemed to drain out of him in that moment.

"I want to buy out your contract," Viktor murmured. He was bowed over Yuuri's hand across the table, so all he could see was the crown of that pale hair. The words pressed like a brand against his pulse, searing. "Name me a price and be mine, Yuuri."

His heart stopped, and, for a moment, Yuuri almost forgot to breathe.

It felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room and like a punch to the gut all at once, leaving him so winded that it was a wonder he wasn't gasping on the floor. The moment couldn't have lasted more than a few scant seconds, yet it seemed so much longer, the weight of those words stretching the silence between them in monumental ways. Yuuri turned them over in his head so many times within the space of those quick beats that they lost all meaning, becoming a jumble of syllables ringing in his head, without rhyme or reason.

“Why would you _say_ something like that?” He hissed. _Is this another test,_ went the unspoken question, though what answer Viktor was searching for, Yuuri couldn’t hazard a guess.

Another lick, and this time with the flat of Viktor’s tongue. He couldn’t have missed the hard beat of Yuuri’s pulse, how fast the blood was rushing through him; it all flowed to Yuuri’s head, made him feel dizzy from sensation.

“Isn’t it obvious by now?” Viktor asked, then, “I want you.”

Viktor said it so casually, so naked in his desire that it _floored_ him. Those same words would have choked halfway out of Yuuri’s own mouth. What could he say to _that_? Yuuri could barely find the sense to keep breathing, let alone string together a coherent sentence. Not when Viktor kept kissing his hand, his palm, his wrist, each of his fingers. Such a simple touch shouldn’t have had such an effect on him, and yet it felt as if all the nerves inside his body zeroed in on the exact spot where Viktor deigned to kiss.

All he could do was shake through it, still unable to pull himself away, to pull himself _together._ “No,” Yuuri said. He closed his eyes, as if not seeing Viktor would somehow lessen his body’s reaction to the other man. It did not. In his head, he repeated, _six months, just six months, six months and I’m free,_ trying to hold it there as his guidepost. “That’s not an option.”

When he finally opened his eyes, Viktor was staring at him through the thick fan of his lashes. The cool blue of his irises had thinned, edged out by the depthless black of his pupils. Viktor licked his lips, stained red with wine, curling up at the corners when he noticed Yuuri’s gaze drop down to them. 

“Why not?” Viktor asked, practically at a croon. Yuuri had a feeling they weren’t talking about the offer anymore. Or maybe they _were_ , and this was part of it. Or maybe this was a different deal altogether. Viktor had to have known what he was doing, the effect of his touches, of his voice—that was the one thing Yuuri was sure of, in that moment. “We had fun last time, didn’t we?”

“Is that what you call it?” A weak objection. Hardly one at all, actually, and Viktor knew it too.

Viktor stood abruptly, then, tugging on the wrist he still held and forcing Yuuri onto his feet. Yuuri followed the motion around the table, until he was crowding into Viktor’s space—their chests nearly touching, hands entangled between them, breathing each other’s air. There was no way to disguise the hitch in his throat, not this close. He watched Viktor watch him, and felt himself almost sway from how helpless he was against the fierce _want_ urging him closer. But he couldn’t do it, couldn’t that final step that would dissolve the distance between them.

Sensing that hesitation, Viktor brought his other hand up to Yuuri’s face. His knuckles swept across the top of Yuuri’s cheek, down the line of his jaw, his thumb settling on the moue of Yuuri’s bottom lip. Yuuri felt himself flush at the slow caress; this was a lover’s touch, gentle, so unexpected and different from the last time they had been this close. But that was a lie, part of Viktor’s game—and, Yuuri realized, so was this.

Suddenly, all Yuuri wanted to do was _tear him apart_ , his desire taking a violent turn when he remembered exactly who this was. Viktor Nikiforov wasn’t his lover, wasn’t anything to Yuuri beyond his temporary owner.

Yuuri breathed hard. His entire body trembled with caged-up anger, wanting to dispense with that gentle touch and rip open into the truth instead. If Viktor wanted to use him like this, then he should lay it all out without the pretense of tenderness. With a growl, Yuuri broke from their twined hands, reaching up to drag Viktor into a kiss. His fingers fisted at the nape of Viktor’s neck, twisting into the fine silver hairs there. Their mouths clashed painfully, Yuuri’s teeth catching on Viktor’s bottom lip, drawing blood.

The other man didn’t hesitate, clutching Yuuri about the hips to pull him in closer. There was no softness to Viktor’s body—only hard lines and even harder muscle, winding through every last inch of him. Yuuri gasped as he was hoisted up, forced to wrap his legs around Viktor’s trim waist lest they both topple over. The way Viktor’s mouth opened over his to deepen the kiss, sucking in as if he were trying to steal the very breath from Yuuri’s lungs, was filthy and feverishly hot. Yuuri groaned into it, couldn’t help the way every part of his body tightened as Viktor’s tongue slipped into his mouth, the taste of him heady like the wine he had been drinking. Viktor’s fingers were digging into his ass, the thin material of his sleepwear doing nothing dull the sensation, barely a barrier between their skin.

Yuuri had never been kissed like this. He’d barely been kissed at all, actually, but still he could tell there was an intensity to this that bordered on the dangerous, though if it was towards Viktor or himself he couldn’t tell. He wasn’t sure he cared, in that moment, found himself lost in chasing after Viktor’s mouth when the other man made to pull away, his grip on the back of Viktor’s head unyielding.

Viktor took a step forward, staggering as he overbalanced on Yuuri’s weight. Their mouths jarred apart, but without missing a beat, Viktor dragged his now free lips down the column of Yuuri’s throat, sucking at the skin there and grazing his teeth against the bobbing curve of the Adam’s apple. It didn’t take long for them to end up on the couch.

There was a predatory look on Viktor’s face as he loomed over Yuuri. His hair was disheveled, the neat lines of his pressed suit all mussed and wrinkled from the desperate clutch of Yuuri’s hands. A flush spread out across his pale cheeks, down his neck, disappearing into the collar of his button-up shirt, the color sending a prickle of heat up Yuuri’s spine. His mouth was _wrecked_ —lips red and glistening from Yuuri’s saliva, looking so well-kissed as to be obscene, hanging open as he breathed in harshly.

Viktor bent over him again, turning that first kiss into a second, then a third, his tongue prising open the seam of Yuuri’s lips until all he could do was just keep them parted. His eyes fluttered to a close, Viktor pushing him deeper into the cushions of the couch. A hand worked loose the knotted drawstring of Yuuri’s sweats, pushing them down his hips; Viktor’s hand settled on the curve of his ass with the motion, staying there even as the pants were shoved onto the floor. Yuuri hissed as his cock was exposed to the cold air, bucking up unintentionally and gasping when the head of it came in contact with the cool metal of Viktor’s belt. 

“Patience,” Viktor murmured into his mouth, but Yuuri was all out. He didn’t want it slow, soft, at least not from _him._

With a growl, Yuuri sat up. He pushed back on Viktor’s shoulders until the other man toppled over, onto the other end of the couch, looking shocked as Yuuri quickly climbed on top of him. “If you’re gonna use me,” Yuuri hissed, positioning his legs on either side of that narrow waist, “then at least do it _properly._ ” He braced himself against the arm of the couch, grinding down hard against the bulge in Viktor’s pants. The other man moaned, hands flying to grip Yuuri’s hips, tilting his head back to expose his throat—something Yuuri immediately took advantage of, lips latching onto that pale column, giving as good as he got. He sucked a mark into the hollow of that throat, grinding so hard against Viktor’s lap it was almost _painful_. 

Yet, Viktor only tugged him in closer, rising up to meet each circle of Yuuri’s fevered hips. One of his hands slipped up Yuuri’s back, dragging the shirt with him, over Yuuri’s head and tossed behind the couch, leaving Yuuri completely bare, a writhing mess astride his lap. “Fuck,” Viktor groaned, then again as Yuuri began working open the buckle of his belt, “ _fuck._ ” 

Tugging Viktor’s cock out of his half-open pants, Yuuri wasted no time in bringing them together, barely able to get his hand around the both of them side-by-side. Someone drew in a breath so sharp it cut through all the other noises in the room, and neither of them could tell who it was. It didn’t matter—all Yuuri could think about was how much he _ached_ , how much he wanted to undo Viktor and turn him into the quivering mess Yuuri had been, senseless with pleasure, under his power. He began to stroke along the length of them, jerky and without grace, each tug of skin and sweat coaxing them closer to the edge. With his other hand Yuuri shoved off Viktor’s suit jacket and rucked up his dress shirt, which had come partially undone, digging his nails savagely into the hard muscle of his chest.

The other man hissed and rolled his hips up harshly, trying to regain control, but Yuuri wouldn’t let him. He dug his knees further into the couch, refusing to budge when Viktor tried to upend him onto his back. It only made Yuuri squeeze harder around their cocks, tearing a gasp from Viktor’s throat as pleasure edged too much into pain. His fingers tightened just a little more, then went loose again, and he watched with undisguised satisfaction as Viktor ceased trying to throw him off, instead clutching Yuuri’s hips with a bruising grip.

“Come _on,_ ” Yuuri said. His hand moved faster, determined not to come first. He wanted to wring Viktor dry before he even thought about it, to watch him go loose with pleasure. “ _Come on._ ” Viktor let out a cut-off moan as Yuuri’s fingers twisted around the head of his cock, with a longer one spilling out of his lips when the motion was repeated. “That’s it,” he said, tipping forward until his forehead was on Viktor’s shoulder, the angle just right so he could watch his hand move between them, the head of Viktor’s cock pushing up over the top of his fist. “ _Come._ ”

With a groan, Viktor’s whole body arched beneath him, hips jerking sporadically as he came. The orgasm tore through him and left him moaning raggedly into the air, then into the crown of Yuuri’s head, his fingers digging grooves into Yuuri’s hips. Satisfied, finally, Yuuri fucked into his own fist, which was now hotter and wetter. He set his teeth against Viktor’s shoulder to bite off his own moan, coming quickly, feeling so _good_ it almost _hurt_.

He sagged bonelessly against Viktor, too tired to move. If he had tried to stand, Yuuri was sure his knees would have buckled under his own weight and sent him straight to the floor. Viktor’s harsh breaths began to even out, his hands flattening over Yuuri’s hips—no longer bruising in their grip, but no less secure as he held them together.

Viktor was saying something—in English? Russian?—that Yuuri didn’t catch. Instead, he let his eyes drift closed, trying to convince himself that what he just did was _fine, absolutely fine, it meant nothing._

Neither of them noticed Viktor’s phone, which had been buzzing silently in the pocket of a suit jacket that lay crumpled on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Murder; graphic depictions of violence; mentions of guns; anxiety and PTSD.
> 
> † NHK is Japan’s national public broadcasting organization, which also provides an international broadcasting service. 
> 
>    
> **  
>    
> On a completely different note, this fic now has art!
> 
> Thank you to the amazing, wonderful, incredibly talented [lamenart](http://lamenart.tumblr.com) for [THIS](http://lamenart.tumblr.com/post/160400377930/victuuri-mafia-au-inspired-by-kintsugi) incredible drawing of Viktor and Yuuri. I almost died when I saw it, I literally had heart palpitations. 
> 
> **
> 
> Holy shit this was long. 11k words hahaha I’m dying squirtle. I'm gonna lay down and pass out now. Editing this thing was a MONSTER.
> 
> Anyway! Sorry that this took so long. Again. I feel like I’ve said that so often that I should just put it as a permanent note in the bottom, but hopefully once my summer hours start I will have more time to write!
> 
> Surprise! The past unfolds with Mari POV! Hope that answers _some_ of your questions. But who knows, maybe you'll eventually hear this from the _kumicho_ 's side. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> Enjoy and thank you for your continued support! Your kudos, bookmarks, etc. mean everything to me. I love all your comments and I read them often, because you all are so nice and inspire me to write. Updating now on Mondays/Tuesdays. Find me at my YOI blog [witchsbane](https://witchsbane.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat/ask me questions/etc.!


	13. Abeyance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abeyance
> 
> 1\. A state of temporary inactivity  
> 2\. A lapse in succession, during which there is no person in whom a title is vested

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at end of chapter.

The difficult part was getting _out_ of Russia. Doing so while keeping Yakov in the dark, and without Viktor’s almost limitless resources, should have been a damn near impossible task. But Yuri, though young, was not without his own tricks. He hadn’t spent almost ten years at the elbow of two of the most dangerous men in the criminal underworld without learning how to lie through his teeth and keep a few secrets closeted away.

One such secret were his Angels: a network of associates he’d cultivated over the Dark Net, first born out of idle curiosity, and then grew as an exercise in his own ability.† The network dipped into a whole host of businesses, none of them entirely legitimate, trading in bitcoin and information as their primary currency. It was an avenue he knew both Viktor and Yakov rarely dabbled in, their modus operandi more inclined towards physical turns of profit, and one he gleefully took advantage of under their noses. In just a few short years he’d managed to build himself an empire and name as the Ice Tiger, and was happily, if quietly, notorious in his own right.

It was through his Angels that Yuri began enacting his plan, the beginnings of which took shape during that rooftop conversation with Otabek. It was from them that he’d acquired forged papers, and how he arranged their travel. Getting everything he needed was almost comically _easy_. With a few strokes of his keyboard, Yuri was able to find them new identities and safe passage from country to country, his bank account missing a few zeroes but circumventing Yakov entirely. Slowly, over the weeks since Viktor left and Yuri made the decision to follow, he began amassing everything he and Otabek needed to drop off the face of the world, with no one else the wiser.

That kind of independence was _heady_ ; the waiting, on the other hand, was torturous. They’d had to postpone their departure until after Yakov had _gone away on business_ , taking the first chance to slip out of St. Petersburg as soon as it happened. They boarded a redeye from Pulkovo to Changi, and from there arranged for a cargo ship to carry them all the way to Japan—a journey that took them nearly four days of back-to-back travel to complete. By the end of it, when they finally docked in Tokyo Bay, the both of them were wrung out and exhausted; Yuri had the smell of brine stuck to the inside of his nostrils, and a now near permanent aversion to being inside a freight container.

Once in Tokyo they laid low, renting out a cheap hotel right off Shibuya station where they hoped to blend in with the crowd of foreigners constantly passing through the city. Though Otabek could never be mistaken for a native, he stood out marginally less than Yuri, whose bright hair was a beacon they kept covered up at all times. A lot of their time was spent trawling around Tokyo and in nondescript internet cafes, connecting with the Angels and gathering up clues that would help them track down Viktor’s whereabouts. At night, they sat on their respective beds, sharing cheap takeout and swapping stories. If they weren’t on the run, if they were just two normal people, the moment could have been described as fun—even friendly.

Still, it was worth it. By now, Yuri was certain Yakov had been informed of their absence and had probably sent the cavalry out to find them. They wouldn’t. He’d laid out too many false leads, and even if they managed to track him and Otabek as far as Singapore, their paper trail would come to an abrupt end.

The only person he’d bothered to tell was his grandpa, leaving a note by way of explanation that Yuri was safe and traveling. It wouldn’t be enough to ease the man’s worries; Yuri knew that his grandpa didn’t like the Bratva and hated the idea of asking Yakov for help. The only thing he hated more was the inevitability of Yuri becoming more involved in the _Vorovskoy Mir_ , but it couldn’t be helped.[1] He refused to get left behind _again_ , on another job, not after Viktor kept promising him that _the next time would be it._

If Viktor refused to make good on his word, then Yuri was going to force his hand by just _showing the fuck up._

“If anyone deserves to hold a grudge against those assholes,” Yuri said, words muffled around a mouthful of his cheap burger, “it’s me. I’m the one who actually got shot here.” As if summoned, the wound at his side flared to life, though it had healed completely since, still tender in a way that was probably entirely psychological. He’d never been shot before, and it was a lot more painful than he expected, even when the bullet had missed his major organs.

Much of that night remained a blur. Yuri remembered the meeting and everything leading up to that first shot with a kind of disturbing quality, which is when his memories then began to break up, turning into an incoherent jumble within minutes of the foray. He’d been shot almost as soon as he ran out into the corridor, into the thick of the fighting, barely recalling his mad dash towards the nearest exit. There were men pursuing him, none of them friends, and Yuri had been so sure that he was about to die that he startled quite badly when he next woke up, in a hospital bed, with the worried faces of his grandpa and Yakov and Viktor looming overhead. Somewhere between those memories were flashes of a dark-haired, dark-eyed man who carried him to safety and whose face was obscured by Yuri’s haze of pain. It was so strange and surreal that Yuri had been entirely convinced the man was some sort of fever dream, until Viktor told him where he’d been found: a cheap motel room, far from the club, with his blood all over the backseat of an untraceable car.

Yuri touched his side, wincing when he pressed too hard into the divot where the bullet had struck, the newly formed skin there sensitive still.

At least it hadn't permanently affected his shooting. Yuri practiced daily until he could once again operate his rifle comfortably, his range better than ever with all the extra hours he squeezed in on the field. Even now, his fingers itched for the familiar grip of the weapon, which he'd kept within arm's reach ever since waking up from that disaster at Sochi. Unfortunately, there was no feasible way to sneak it onto the plane with him, and he'd been forced to send for it via a land-and-sea route that would take far longer to arrive in Japan. It would get to him _eventually_ , but until then, his only protection came in the form of an errant Kazakh bodyguard.

He looked at Otabek, who was seated on the bed across his and staring out through the slats of the only window in the room. Finally, when the curiosity eating at him became too much to bear, Yuri asked, "Why'd you come with me, anyway? You could have stopped me, or ratted me out. I'm sure this wasn't exactly what Yakov had in mind when he signed you on as my own personal babysitter."

The older boy shrugged. "All he said was to look out for you, protect you with my life if need be. It's easier to do that without having to split my loyalties—so I made a choice, and here I am."

"That simple, huh?" Otabek nodded without saying anything else.

Not that he needed to. It was already more than he expected to hear from someone as aloof and distant as _Otabek_ , and it sent a giddy rush through him. Loyalty like that was what had Mila and Georgi following Viktor halfway around the globe, what bound Viktor himself to Yakov—the kind that _really mattered_ in a world as dangerous as theirs, unequivocal and absolute. And _his._

Yuri couldn't help the grin spreading across his face, though he hid it by shoving a handful of fries into his mouth. He scrambled up from the bed, standing in the middle of the room with his hand outstretched towards the older boy and steeled his resolve, impressing as much gravity as he could into his voice. "We'll look out for each other from now on."

Otabek followed his lead, standing too, and clasped his hand tight. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

Yuuri's pleasured, loose limbed calm faded along with the dissipating heat of his body. Still weakened from the fever, he shivered as a cool draft slowly dried the sweat slicking his skin, becoming acutely aware of the uncomfortable tackiness pressed between them—as well as the way they remained too intimately wrapped around each other, long after they'd both finished.

With a grimace, Yuuri quickly peeled himself off the other man. Standing in the center of the room, he noticed for the first time his sheer _nakedness_ , and felt a renewed blush creep hot across the back of his neck and down his chest. Viktor's eyes held a weight to them as they dragged over the bare stretch of his body. Unable to hide behind the protective shield of his own bravado, Yuuri withered underneath that stare, each one of his flaws systematically pinned down and exposed like a butterfly on a board.

Of course—Viktor, unlike Yuuri, was beautiful even when wrecked. Sprawled out on the couch, he looked like some old god in his throne, with the crown of his silver hair disheveled and pushed back from his forehead, the high color of his cheeks faded into an enticing blush. His legs were spread apart invitingly, framing the soft cock hanging half-out of his open pants. The pale strip of his chest and stomach rose and fell in measured breaths, the evidence of what they'd just done painted white onto his skin.

Yuuri tore himself away from the sight with a violent jerk of his head, embarrassed when Viktor's eyes caught his and a lewd smile curled up at the corners of his mouth. They were still _too close—_ so close that Yuuri could feel all the heat and energy of Viktor's body thrumming just within reach, found himself almost tempted to curl back into it. But he didn't, almost stepping back into the coffee table in his haste to avoid the other man's hand, which rose up to find his hip once more.

Letting his arm drop into empty air, Viktor tilted his head at Yuuri in consideration. "How cold," he said, smile flattening out on his lips. "After all that, and you're still shying away from me?"

Instead of responding, however, Yuuri hastily picked up his discarded clothes and rushed off in the direction of the bedroom. "I'm going to clean up," he demurred, and it took all his self-control not to burst out into a sprint, locking the door behind him to widen the distance between them. In the shower, he turned up the water so hot that it almost burned, scrubbing himself raw from head to toe for the second time that day. He leaned his forehead against the smooth tile of the wall, not knowing what to do about the anxious knots twisting in his stomach, except to let his mind go blank, stripping away at the memory until he could no longer feel anything about it.

He didn't want—or need—this complication.

It was a bad idea to begin with, possibly the worst he'd ever had. Twice he'd gotten caught in the undertow of Viktor Nikiforov's touch, every last inch of his carefully cultivated self-control given over to something that could so easily _ruin him_ with a single misstep, miscalculated word.

Was he really that weak? So desperate for any touch not sprung from violence that he would fall apart for the first person to offer it? And even that was no guarantee with Viktor, whose gilded words he quite obviously could not trust, who made promises he couldn't possibly keep. For all he spoke of _wanting_ Yuuri, how long would that attention actually hold once he'd gotten his fill? When he got bored or tired, as he inevitably would, it was Yuuri that would be left to deal with the fallout. He shuddered just thinking about it, imagining the unmitigated contempt on the _kumicho_ 's face if he ever found out—a knowing look, as if he expected no less than for a dog like Yuuri to spread his legs, so long as it made whatever master he served happy.

It wasn’t true, of course. The _kumicho_ never broached that final boundary of their relationship, and, as far as Yuuri knew, he wasn’t interested in men. But it didn’t stop the persistent rumors that followed in his wake. So few of the Family knew exactly how their _Oyabun_ came to acquire his new pet; all they saw was Yuuri ever at his side, installed at the center of his household, at his beck and call. It was no wonder that they thought him the _Oyabun_ ’s favored whore—a deadly one, but a whore nonetheless. Those who _did_ know treated him with even more disdain, all too ready to hold him down and fuck him into submission if he ever let his guard down, knowing that there’d be no consequences if they did.

In Viktor's hands, it seemed that he'd done exactly as they expected: offer up the last pieces of himself he could still lay claim to, in the heat of the moment to a man with the power to raze everything he'd worked for to the ground.

Viktor would kill him, if he knew, without hesitation.

For some reason, Yuuri hadn't expected Viktor to still be there when he finally emerged from the bedroom, clad in a new set of sleepwear, skin pinked from the shower. But there he was, turned away from the door, looking out over the dark terrace. Leaning into the shadows of the doorway, Yuuri watched the smooth line of Viktor's spine as he shrugged back into his wrinkled clothes, one hand pulling the suit jacket across his shoulders and the other holding his cellphone up to his ear. The other man had yet to notice him standing there, too preoccupied with the conversation to take account of his surroundings, and it was only then that Yuuri realized something was _wrong_ about the scene.

It wasn't that Viktor was shouting, or even outwardly aggressive—yet there was a tension in the way he moved, coiled up tight and high in his shoulders and neck as he paced the floor of the living room. He was out for blood, it seemed, his voice a cutting edge in the rapid-fire Russian he spoke over the phone. Yuuri's understanding of the language was limited, at best, to common phrases he'd memorized in preparation for Sochi, and he only caught snatches of familiar words interspersed with guttural swearing.

_"What do you mean he's gone? I thought...guard him?"_ Viktor snapped into the phone, clutching it so tight that his knuckles bleached white. _"Stupid child...get himself...killed. Where do you think—?"_ There was a long pause as Viktor waited for an answer, the voice on the other end of the line sounding clipped even through the static. Viktor's face turned ashen as he listened, losing what little color it had, and his expression twisted into something that Yuuri had never seen on him before—not when he'd been surprised, or backed into a corner and outnumbered. It was a look of pure panic. _"You think...Japan? Are you sure? Yes, of course...bring him home, Yakov."_

_Yakov._

That name alone was enough to strike a chord of fear deep inside him, as if, somehow, the Pakhan could sense the utter _wrongness_ of Yuuri's presence an entire continent away. He froze instantly, scarcely daring to breathe lest it draw attention to himself. Though he knew there was no reason to suspect the call was about _him_ , Yuuri couldn't stop himself from taking a step back almost instinctively, his eyes darting around for the nearest exits.

He could tell exactly when the phone call ended because Viktor turned sharply to face him, seeking Yuuri’s figure in the dark as if he’d known all along where to find him. Gone was his earlier languidness, replaced instead by an urgency that marked his every move, had him reaching out towards Yuuri with a painfully tight grip.

Yuuri startled, jerking back in surprise, but found that he couldn’t get free. “What are you—?”

“Get dressed. We have to go.” Viktor didn’t bother explaining himself beyond that, half-dragging Yuuri back into the bedroom. He grabbed the small suitcase containing all of Yuuri’s clothes, tossing everything within arm’s reach into it. When he found Yuuri’s guns, hidden beneath the mess of pillows and blankets on the bed, he silently handed them over for safekeeping before going back to his initial task. In just a few short minutes, he’d managed to maneuver Yuuri into his coat and shoes, and then out the door of the suite.

It was later than he thought, so there was no one around to see them speed off into the empty streets. Viktor drove fast, even more recklessly than usual, his foot made of lead and stuck permanently on accelerate. The night was a dark blur through the window, and Yuuri’s heart was beating wildly in his chest as they traced an unfamiliar path through the city, leading them away from the heart of its urban nightlife and into a quieter collection of buildings on its outer edge. Viktor’s finger tapped a rhythmless beat against the steering wheel, though he didn’t seem aware he was doing it, a distracted impulse as he focused on the road ahead. Yuuri couldn’t help but watch him through the rearview mirror, noting the wrinkle between his brows and the downturn of his lips, slight, but very much present in his displeasure.

Whatever news Viktor received was apparently troubling enough that he couldn’t hide behind the casually unaffected smile he often wore. Yuuri wanted desperately to ask, but words seemed out of place in the oppressive silence of the car, like a line he dared not cross, so he kept his mouth shut instead and tried to memorize each twist and turn as they drove deeper into the Nishijin backstreets.

They eventually stopped in a sleepy residential area, where rows of identical suburban houses lined either side of the narrow road. Each one had their windows shuttered closed, families turned in for the rest of the night. Viktor parked in a concealed alley and flashed his headlights once, twice—almost too fast to see—before turning them off completely. They sat in absolute stillness, waiting in bated breath with nothing but the smooth purr of the engine making a sound, the pavement stretched dark ahead of them. Then, a few long seconds later, a window at the end of the street flashed its lights in return.

It was Mila waiting for them at the door, the slip of her silhouette illuminated by the warm light coming from the kitchen just behind her. She ushered them inside, out of the cold and away from prying eyes. Georgi was there, too, seated at the furthest edge of an island in the middle of the room. His face was illuminated harshly by the laptop in front of him, on which he was typing furiously as if he didn’t notice them walk in. Both of their expressions were grim, stripped of everything but worry.

“Viktor, you’re here. Thank god.” Mila pulled Viktor around the island so they could both look over Georgi’s shoulder, watching in silence as he continued to type. Feeling awkward standing by himself, Yuuri cast his eyes about the room, absorbing each find detail as if he’d be tested on the material later. It was a nervous habit he’d picked up under the _kumicho_ , who often _did_ test him when he thought Yuuri hadn’t been paying attention, asking him to regurgitate the who and what and where of various unfamiliar places they’d just been. The punishments for answering wrong were harsh, and grew harsher still after every lesson, so he quickly learned what he was expected to know every time he entered a new room.

Who was there? How dangerous were they? Where were his nearest exits? Places to take cover? To hide?

But the longer Yuuri looked, the easier it was to see that whoever had picked their current location had cycled through much of the same questions, and had been just as thorough in their preparation. It would be difficult to approach the house without being noticed down the long street, and it was in a nice enough neighborhood that any suspicious activity would be reported and responded to quickly. He had marked out two access points when they first entered the house, the front door and the back, the latter of which provided good cover if it became necessary to run. Of course, all this information was unsurprising—especially if the Russians had been using the house as their base of operations since they arrived.

However, the most striking thing about the place was its utter plainness. Unlike the luxurious penthouse suite they’d stuck Yuuri in, the house looked like it could have belonged to any average middle class Japanese family in the country. Though obviously well-made and well-furnished, it lacked the lavishness Yuuri had come to associate with Viktor and his retinue, stripped down to little more than the most basic comforts of home. It was curious, and utterly disorienting to realize that the portrait he’d had of Viktor in his head was so contrary from the pieces of the man he’d glimpsed behind the act. He wondered, briefly, what it meant that he was even allowed this close to see the difference, but banished that thought from his head entirely.

The typing stopped abruptly, and Georgi closed the laptop with a tense huff under his breath. Viktor crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at the other man, the frown pulling deeper down his lips. “Did you find him?” He asked, and when Georgi shook his head, “So why did you stop _looking?_ ” The edge of his voice was so dark and dangerous that even Georgi pulled back, the legs of his chair screeching against tile as he stumbled to put distance between them. In a second, he was around the table.

“I’m trying,” Georgi tried to explain, holding his hands out in front of himself in a gesture of surrender. “We’ve all been, since we got the news, but there’s—“

“That’s _not good enough_ ,” Viktor snapped back, before Georgi could finish.

Viktor took a step forward, but was stopped in his tracks by Mila’s firm hand on his chest. She leveled him a look, placing herself between the two men as if she’d done it before. Yuuri felt a surge of protectiveness well up inside him, urging him to move closer to the confrontation, though he wanted nothing more than to follow Georgi’s lead and fall back. “We’re _trying_ , Viktor,” she said, “but we found out same as you. Yuri’s been gone for over a week—you’re gonna have to give us more time to find him. And you can’t take it out on Georgi, either. He hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s the Papa that chose to wait this long.”

Yuuri would have spent more time wondering why she said his name if his attention weren’t entirely on Viktor. He readied himself for that inevitable burst of violence—the kind he’d seen a hundred times before in men like these, so sure of their power, of their right—and gauged how quickly he’d be able to shove Mila out of the way. All his weight tipped forward onto the balls of his feet, the air in his lungs thinning as he held it in anticipation.

Then, much to Yuuri’s surprise, the Pakhan-to-be eased off almost completely. The mounting pressure of his anger slid away like oil over water, dragging the hard line of Viktor’s shoulders down into a frustrated slump. “I know, _I know,_ ” he ruffled his hair as he said it, pushing the fringe back from where it had fallen into his eyes, “I was out of line.”

There was a tense pause between the three, a bated breath as Viktor held out his hand towards Georgi. It was not exactly an apology, but it was as close as Yuuri had ever seen from a boss to his subordinate, and the dark-haired man relented after another beat had passed. Mila relaxed, urging Georgi to take up his seat once more to continue the search, then dragged Viktor aside into the other room. Yuuri followed behind, not sure if he was welcome, but liking even less the idea of standing in the middle of the kitchen with nothing to do while Georgi was busy with his task. He lingered at the far edge of the living room instead, leaning up against the doorway so as to shrink into himself, trying not to make it too obvious that he was listening in.

Viktor paced the length of the room like a wolf on the hunt—head down, eyes intent, muscles tight with tension—while Mila settled down on a comfortable looking armchair in the corner of the room. It was hard to believe that Yuuri had seen her just that morning, because she seemed deeply exhausted, as if she hadn’t slept in quite some time. The pallor of her face was blanched, barely concealed by makeup, and her lips bitten raw with worry.

“So you haven’t found _anything?_ ” Viktor asked, pausing mid-stride. “Are we sure he left…willingly?”

“The Papa knows everything we do right now,” Mila said with a regretful shake of her head. “There’s no record of him leaving the country, aside from those photographs that _might_ be him at Pulkovo, so we know he didn’t use his real name. His personal funds are all untouched, and no one’s come to us asking for a ransom or even a reward for getting him back.” Mila hesitated briefly, as if she didn’t want to say the last bit, but forged ahead anyway. “All the evidence points to Yuri leaving of his own free will—we just don’t know why.”

There it was again—Yuuri’s own name, tossed into the thick of conversation—but it was clear they weren’t talking about him. Someone had gone missing, and this person was apparently important enough to Yakov Feltsman that he sent his heir chasing after them.

Viktor continued pacing, oblivious to the questions swirling around Yuuri’s head. “And he took that useless бык with him, too,” he snapped at no one in particular. “What was Yakov thinking not telling me sooner?”

“Maybe he didn’t want to bother you,” Mila said, though the suggestion sounded weak even to her own ears. “We were in the middle of planning the warehouse raid, after all.” Here, she cast her eyes towards Yuuri, still standing quietly framed by the doorway, as if to say his intrusion hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“You mean his pride stopped him from coming to me earlier,” Viktor snorted inelegantly. “He resents the idea of _the Papa_ needing help from anyone, even when it concerns his only grandson.”

Yuuri reared back, as if physically struck by the words, though the other two paid him no mind. It was news to him that Yakov Feltsman had a _grandson_ , hadn’t even occurred to him that the man had any blood relatives left. It was a scandal in the underworld when the Pakhan had officially presented Viktor Nikiforov as his heir—then an unknown teenager beginning to make his name, with no apparent connection to the man himself. The Bratva, much like the Yakuza, was usually so staunch in its lines of succession that the idea of an outsider inheriting such a powerful operation had been unheard of. It was a well-known, but little spoken of fact that half the assassination attempts made on Viktor’s life in those early years had come not from enemy syndicates, but from within the Feltsman Bratva’s own ranks.

To hear that Yakov had a _grandson_ after all this time sent Yuuri’s stomach plummeting down to the soles of his shoes. This was a secret he was never meant to hear, of that Yuuri was sure, one probably closely guarded within the circles of their family.

A sharp ringing sounded out from Viktor’s pocket suddenly, halting their conversation. Viktor fished the phone out of his jacket and made as if to silence the call, but tensed once he got a good look at the screen. He glanced up at Mila, then finally turned to acknowledge Yuuri, before he answered the phone with a low, “ _Yakov_ ,” walking through the living room and into another part of the house.

Now that Viktor’s raging was directed elsewhere, Mila let herself go boneless in the armchair, closing her eyes with a tired sigh. It was silent for a few long minutes, Yuuri too reluctant to interrupt her rest, but she eventually cracked her eyes open and asked in a bleary voice, “Tea?” Not waiting for a response, Mila stood and ushered him back into the kitchen where Georgi was still working. It didn’t take her long to get a kettle started on the stove, plundering the cabinets for a tin of tea and three mugs. Yuuri followed her lead and sat down at the table, taking the empty spot across Georgi.

Said man barely glanced up from the laptop when he heard the chair scrape against tile, opening his mouth to say something in Russian, only to find Yuuri sitting there. Georgi snapped his mouth shut, giving Yuuri a small smile in greeting instead. He looked tired, too, hunched over the table with his face close to the screen and his fingers tapping nonstop on the keyboard; he paused briefly when Mila shoved a steaming mug into his hands. “Спасибо, Milochka.”

"Пожа́луйста," Mila returned, then handed one to Yuuri as well.

He took the mug with a murmured thanks, warmth bleeding through the ceramic and into his icy fingers. It was only then that he realized how cold he was, unable to suppress the shivers racking his entire body. He sipped the tea, which was steeping still and tasted more of water than anything else, the heat of it pooling deep in his stomach.

"Де Ви́ктор?" Georgi asked abruptly, remaining in his native tongue. He cast a sidelong glance at Yuuri from the corner of his eyes. There was no mistaking the name he'd just uttered, despite how thickly the Russian accent wrapped around it, and that was a statement in and of itself. One that proclaimed, loudly, _I don't trust you._ Yuuri could have laughed at how right he was not to, but he said nothing instead, keeping his gaze trained on the swirl of tea leaves at the bottom of his mug.

It seemed that Mila hadn't missed the slight against Yuuri either, because she leveled a flat look at the _avtoritet_ over the table. "Don't be so rude, Gosha," she scolded pointedly. "If Viktor trusts him enough to bring him back here, then so should we. It's not our place to question him." Yuuri felt a hot spike of guilt lodge firmly in his throat when she looked at him, an encouraging smile playing on her lips as she tipped her own mug towards him. He didn't need— _deserve—_ her coming to his defense. "He already knows about Yura, anyway."

"Just what you two said back there." Yuuri swallowed hard, tamping down the nerves creeping into his voice. Now was _not_ the time to panic, even if all he wanted to do was bury his head in the sand and shut out all their secrets. The less he knew the better. "I...didn't know Yakov Feltsman had a grandson."

"That's because you're not supposed to," Georgi said. "No one outside the Family should, but I guess you're quickly becoming the exception." He closed his laptop to give his full attention to the conversation, turning the luminous blue of his eyes to Yuuri. “But now that you know—it shouldn't be hard to understand why Yuri, _our Yuri_ , is so important to both the Papa and to Viktor. And why nothing we say here can ever leave this house, is that clear?"

" _Crystal._ " Yuuri bristled at the icy threat. It wasn't like he _wanted_ to know; yet, what choice did he actually have? As with all things involving Viktor Nikiforov, somehow getting pulled into its orbit seemed inevitable.

"Good. Because if word gets out about who Yuri is, then every last one of our enemies will be out for his blood," Georgi said grimly. "We can't risk another assassination attempt. He's still too young, and the last one was too close."

_That_ made Yuuri sit up straighter, his spine locking into place. Alarm bells were ringing in his head, a warning that hooked its barbs under the surface of his skin and nagged insistently at him. "The last one?" Yuuri managed to ask. He set the mug down onto the table, trying to conceal his suddenly unsteady grip, his frantically pounding heart. _The last assassination attempt on the Feltsman Bratva was... was..._ "I thought you said no one even knew about him. What reason would they have to go after some _kid_ —even if he was close to your Pakhan?”

Mila and Georgi looked at each other, hesitant, a wordless debate passing between them, and all Yuuri wanted to do in that instant was shake the secrets loose from their lips.

But he didn’t have to, evidently, because Mila answered his question after a few seconds of tense silence.

“They would…if they knew he was the Papa’s heir.”

Yuuri’s heart leapt into his throat, stayed there, cutting off the surprised gasp that tore out of him. “I thought—, but isn’t it—, what about _Viktor?_ ” His eyes darted in the direction of the living room, as if he could somehow see said man through the walls, watch him pace impatiently like a beast in its cage.

“Only until Yuri is old enough to take over the Family,” Georgi explained, resigned to it now that Mila had made the decision for him. “There’s no doubt that Viktor is the _best_ at what he does, and there are few stupid enough to cross him—but he’s not a Feltsman, and everyone knows it.”

Immediately, Yuuri understood what he meant. Blood in a world like theirs was paramount, sometimes more than money or power; it lead to alliances that lasted generation after generation, and wars even longer than that. Yuuri himself was bound to this life because of blood—by his first kill, and then by the promise that his family’s wouldn’t be spilt.

Viktor had earned his reputation, true, but to some he was little more than an upstart whose claim to the Bratva’s legacy was tenuous at best. Those who valued blood above all else would oppose his leadership, his right to take the Pakhan’s place—and the dissent would create fault lines large enough, deep enough to splinter an empire over fifty years in Yakov Feltsman’s making.

There was a sickening lurch in his stomach, one that only got worse as Georgi continued. "That's why Viktor has done all... _this_ ," he made a sweeping gesture at the room, then at Yuuri himself, "and why he chased you down half a world away. Because you're the _best_ , yes, but more importantly, you've done this before. What he and Yakov have started with the Sungiru Pa—it was never just about a broken treaty. This is beyond that now. Our Family trusted the Lees enough to tell them about Yuri, and the minute we let our guard down, they went after him in cold blood. It won't stop until either they all die—or we do."

Everything in the room went devastatingly still and clear, like looking all the way down to the bottom of deep dark lake. If Yuuri were standing, he was sure Georgi's words would have been enough to knock him over sideways, his understanding falling into place with a definitive _click_. This was the last piece of the puzzle he'd needed. Viktor's vehemence finally began to make sense, his utter urgency to end what he—wrongly, _oh so wrongly_ —believed the Sungiru Pa had started.

Blood feuds were brutal in their extent and endurance, not to be declared lightly when the cost was so high, even when the threat was made directly against a boss. They lasted for generations, depleted a syndicate's resources, took many more lives on both sides than had already been lost. The only way to _win_ , to come out on top, was to strike hard and fast against the enemy. It also explained why Sara Crispino had chosen now, of all times, to divulge her secrets, apparently in kinship with this young heir caught in the crossfire between two families. One that Yuuri was entirely to blame for.

It was hard to believe he didn’t make the connections earlier. But, then again—he hadn’t known about the Pakhan’s grandson.

Yuuri wanted to throw up, nausea surging like a rogue wave inside of him, sending his stomach into violent fits. He gripped the mug tighter, hard enough that he thought it might break in his hands.

Mila reached out for him, unaware of the panic and guilt damming up his throat, making it difficult to breathe, her touch so gentle on his arm that he almost forgot to flinch. “That’s why we need to find him,” she said. “If the Lees realize he’s out there—alone, unprotected—who knows what they’ll do. Yura’s a smart kid, but he can’t take on someone like Seung-gil all by himself. That’s why…if there’s any way you can help—“

Just then, Viktor swept back into the kitchen. His normally composed expression was on the verge of a storm, knuckles curved white over his phone. “ _Well?_ ” He asked, but was met with nothing but silence from the table. “Yakov found out some new information, but nothing that’s particularly helpful to us. Yuri used an alias to get on the flight, and we traced them all the way to Singapore before he went underground. None of our contacts have heard of him surfacing yet—so either he’s dead, or still in hiding.”

The three of them blanched, the blunt truth striking hard.

“Yuri’s covered his tracks pretty well so far. What are the chances Seung-gil won’t…” Mila trailed off, the thought going unfinished when Viktor firmly shook his head.

“Low,” he said, grim. “He has most of Asia under his thumb, and our Family on his radar. If the Lees don’t already know Yuri is in their territory, they will _soon._ At this point it’s just a matter of who gets to him first—“

“—and we’re completely outmatched on the Lees’ home ground,” Georgi finished.

There was a pregnant pause as the reality of the situation sank in, the tension growing palpable in the choked-off quiet they were left with.

Then, Yuuri spoke, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Not completely,” he said, jumping only slightly when the three of them whipped around to look at him. He swallowed, throat parched. “There might be someone who can help—if you’re willing to pay their price.”

Viktor looked at him, once more all steely-eyed self-control. “Name it.”

 

 

There were only two ways to get in contact with someone like Phichit Chulanont: either he finds _you_ , or he lets you find _him._

Yuuri was lucky enough to belong to the very limited circle that made up the latter group, and so the first thing he did upon hearing Viktor's answer was request a burner phone—private, untraceable, and with a number that had never nor would ever be used again.

It had been almost two years since he'd last seen Phichit face-to-face, and even then it was only for a few stolen minutes in the midst of a drop. The Thai had clasped him around the shoulders tightly, pulling him in as close as Yuuri would allow, and extracted a promise to keep in touch by pressing his calling card into Yuuri's palm. _For when you really need me,_ Phichit said. And Yuuri had taken it, tucked it into his back pocket to later memorize and burn, then embraced the other in thanks before they both quietly slipped away.

Now it seemed that the time had finally come to call in that favor.

Though he knew that no one would answer, Yuuri still shook as he dialed in the number practically seared into the back of his brain, his thumb hovering nervously over the CALL button for far longer than necessary. It’s just that—he hadn’t checked in with Phichit since before the mess that was Sochi, when they last used his services, and knew instantly how the hacker would have interpreted that sudden radio silence after a job that big. Celestino had been their go-between whenever they needed to talk, and through his capable hands they passed coded messages that were often as meagre as a single word: SAFE or OK or FINE. Enough to let the other know that, somewhere in the world, the each of them were still alive. But without the intermediary of his handler, Yuuri was simply too afraid to reach out by himself, to reveal his own part in Celestino’s death, and chose to drop off the grid completely.

Death was an all too common hazard of the job, and, at least up until then, Yuuri was convinced that it would be far better for the Thai to think them both gone. Because while the handler had been Yuuri’s friend, Phichit thought of Celestino as family and would more deeply feel his loss. He wasn’t sure if Phichit would blame him—he certainly blamed himself—or if he’d ever forgive Yuuri for taking away someone he considered almost a father. The thought of it ached in the worst way, pulled at all the strings in his heart and knotted them up anxiously inside the hollow of his chest.

The phone rang once, twice, then stopped. A static silence greeted him on the other end of the line, and Yuuri counted slowly just under his breath in a measured _one-two-three-four-five_ before ending the call. After that, there was nothing to do but wait for a response; Phichit was particular to the point of paranoia, and deviating from the carefully laid out instructions he’d given would only drive him away. The number would go dead and Yuuri would lose his only means of contacting the hacker as Phichit retreated further into the Dark Net, trail after false trail making him impossible to follow.

So he had to be patient, though it was the last thing Yuuri wanted to do. His palms were sweating as he set the phone down onto the table and stared at it, as if by doing so he could will it into response, make time tick by faster. Once a call was placed, Phichit would trace the number and its location back to its source, screening for any red flags that indicated if one of his private lines was compromised. If Yuuri passed the test, then Phichit would send a message with a time and place to meet—both nonnegotiable, and usually with a proxy—before Yuuri had to destroy the phone and its sim card permanently. Somehow, Phichit always knew when his contacts failed to follow the rules, and Yuuri had seen the hacker back down from more than one job that promised millions if they did.

But the minutes stretched on, longer and longer, and Yuuri was beginning to wonder if he'd somehow misremembered the instructions or missed a step along the way. Or, and this was beginning to look far more likely, simply scared Phichit off by resurfacing so suddenly and suspiciously after his long absence. Viktor watched him throughout all this, hands folded beneath his chin, saying nothing; Mila and Georgi had retired upstairs for the night, so it was just the two of them side-by-side in the dimly lit kitchen, waiting for a message that might never come.

Then, as if summoned—the phone beeped with an incoming text.

Yuuri scrambled to pick it up, heart lodged somewhere in the vicinity of his throat when the device clattered loudly against the table and nearly fell through his hands. The heavy weight of Viktor's gaze remained on him as he flipped it open, eyes scanning over the message on the screen. It was a few minutes later when he finally snapped it closed once more, each pixelated character committed indelibly into his memory.

**24th. 2300. Otani TK. [2]**

_Okay,_ he thought, but the pressure in his chest hadn't loosened at all. Out loud, he said, "We've made contact.”

That was how, five days later, Yuuri found himself at the bar of an expensive hotel in downtown Tokyo. Viktor hadn’t been too pleased to hear the seeming lack of urgency in the set time and date of the meeting, but could do little about it—there was no bargaining with the hacker, and either they played by his rules or not at all. With no other choice, Viktor relented, though he drew the line at Yuuri walking into the hotel alone. He insisted that Yuuri at least wear a wire and speaker, while the rest of them watched on from a hacked security feed inside a room they’d booked at the attached hotel. Yuuri agreed, knowing that Phichit’s proxy would have accounted for that possibility already, and at some point ask him to remove the bug before they discussed any sort of business.

Yuuri ordered a drink, which only served as a prop so he could scan the room from the bar, looking for anyone out of place. It wasn’t likely that he’d notice the proxy before they noticed him, though, as Phichit was too well connected to work with an amateur, but it didn’t hurt to try. Viktor murmured a low _all clear_ through the speaker, letting him know that the three Russians were watching remotely as well.

“Vicchan,” a quiet voice called out from his left.

Yuuri whipped around, so fast that he nearly knocked over his drink in surprise. That voice was one he knew intimately, and it filled him with a strange mix of joy and fear to suddenly hear.

At the end of the bar stood Phichit, eyes fixed on Yuuri as if he’d just seen a ghost. The Thai’s face was cast in shadow, dark and warm and distraught in the room’s amber light, his hands clenched tight at his sides. The expression there was open as ever, Phichit having never learned nor needed to conceal his emotions, and the utter rawness of it barreled through him like a freight train. He barely remembered to use the hacker’s alias when he spoke, a choked out, “ _Phi_ ,” upon his lips.§

_“Who’s there? Who are you talking to?”_ Viktor asked through the line, and Yuuri startled, glancing straight up at where he knew the camera to be. It was at exactly the right angle to catch Phichit, who strode up to him confidently, unworried about being seen.

“The cameras are on a loop,” Phichit said into Yuuri’s ear, guessing correctly about the speaker hidden there. “You’ve been watching footage from five minutes ago.” There was muffled swearing, as if Viktor had stepped away from the microphone. Phichit laid a hand on Yuuri’s elbow, guiding him towards a private booth in the back.

_“Hold on—I’m coming to get you,”_ Viktor said.

“No, wait!” Phichit turned to him, but quickly realized the protest wasn’t directed at him. They locked eyes, grey meeting brown, and Yuuri stepped closer to the other man. “I’m fine. It’s fine,” he said, and was met with a sound of disapproval from either Mila or Georgi, he couldn’t tell which. He simply repeated himself, and then, softer, to Viktor, “Trust me.”

There was a pause, lasting a beat, then two. _“I do.”_

Yuuri followed Phichit into the booth, where they sat across each other. He took out the speaker from where it sat in the shell of his ear, turning it off, then laying it down onto the table between them. As soon as he did, Phichit reached over, taking Yuuri’s hand in both of his, a teary smile on his face. “I thought you were dead.”

“I know.”

“When you disappeared… I waited, but when I didn’t hear back I tried and tried to get in contact with you. Nothing went through. Celestino wouldn’t answer any of my messages, and no one in Detroit had heard anything from him, and I thought—“

“I know.” Yuuri cut him off, returning the tight squeeze of Phichit’s fingers. He swallowed down the guilt, forcing himself to speak through it; Phichit deserved a proper apology, at the very least. “I’m sorry.”

Phichit shook his head vehemently. “It’s fine. You’re _okay,_ ” he said, as if it were the greatest gift in the world. “Are you back? For good? Where’s Ciao Ciao?” The subsequent expression on his face must have been _awful_ , because Phichit wilted the instant he saw it, his grip on Yuuri’s hand faltering. “Oh,” he said, the quiet devastation of it twisting like a hot knife in Yuuri’s gut, “ _oh._ ”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, not knowing what else to say.

Fresh tears sprung up in Phichit’s eyes. “At least you’re here.” He renewed his tight grip on Yuuri’s hand, attempting to hide the way his trembled. “What happened? You didn’t tell me much when you left. What were you two doing in Russia?”

Paranoid, he slammed his hand down onto the table, covering the already turned off speaker with his palm, as if Viktor could still somehow hear them. “I can’t explain that right now,” Yuuri breathed out; _or ever_ , he thought. “I—, we need your help.”

Phichit looked down at the bug, suddenly all seriousness, as if just remembering why he’d been called to meet in the first place. “Your new handler?” He guessed, and when Yuuri failed to answer, “Tell me everything.”

So Yuuri did, or at least as much as he could reveal. Of all the people in the world—barring the _kumicho_ himself—Phichit knew the most about his past, understood him best. There was little he could hide from the hacker, though Phichit had always been courteous enough to refrain from prying, and it was with this mindset that the words spilled out like a fountain overflowing from Yuuri’s lips. In the vaguest terms he told Phichit about a failed mission, and Celestino’s death in the ensuing crossfire, and now his chance to redeem himself in the service of the Feltsman Bratva.

When he reached the part about the other Yuri, he hesitated slightly, wondering what he should say. Eventually, though, he decided on the truth, if only to impress upon Phichit the urgency of the situation and why Yuuri had called him in desperation. Even Phichit hadn’t known about Yakov Feltsman’s grandson, his _heir_ , and it was enough to turn the Thai’s face bloodless and pale. His hands crushed Yuuri’s in a bruising hold.

“Put your mic back on,” Phichit said at once, tugging Yuuri up from the booth. “Tell Nikiforov to follow behind us— _just him_. I’m driving a black sedan.” He rattled off the model and license plate number as Yuuri fumbled with the speaker, pressing it back into his ear and making sure the line had connected. He could hear Viktor on the other end, calling his name.

_“Yuuri? Are you there?”_

“Yes,” he breathed out, nearly stumbling as Phichit dragged him out of the bar, into the elevator. “We’re on the move. _Phi_ said to follow behind us…alone.” There was a burst of protests in the background, this time from both Mila _and_ Georgi, telling Viktor that _there was no way_ and mentioning something about a tail. Urgently, Yuuri pressed on, “Viktor—he can help you. But only if you do exactly as he says.”

_“And how do you know that?”_

Yuuri looked at Phichit, the determined set of his brows and his lips, his bright eyes. “Because he wants to help _me_ ,” he said into the mic, almost without meaning to, overwhelmed by the affection bursting in his chest. “It’s up to you.”

It was hard to determine who was more surprised when Viktor agreed: Yuuri, or the man himself. Not that it mattered as Phichit pushed him into the passenger’s seat of the car, Yuuri quickly relaying the make and model of it, and which exit they’d taken from the hotel. The ride was silent as the grave. Phichit twisted them through Tokyo’s evening traffic with finesse, a blur of red and white lights constantly flowing across the streets. It took only a few minutes to spot the familiar hood of Viktor’s car in the sideview mirror, its inky windows ominously reflecting back the glare of the city they sped by.

The place they drove to was only half an hour away, but Phichit ran them in circles for at least twice that, until he was sure Viktor hadn’t been tailed. Yuuri could hear the Russian on the other end of the line, his soft breaths into the mic, sounding like he was alone, though there was no real way to be sure without seeing him in person. They eventually pulled into an underground lot, which had space enough for both cars to park side by side. Yuuri felt a nervous sweat break out on his palms, reminded of the last time he’d been somewhere like this—not as a passenger, but a hostage.

It was different this time. Phichit was by his side, and Viktor was the one to follow them there.

When the Russian stepped out of his car, Yuuri half-expected to see Mila and Georgi pop up right behind him. But it seemed that he really _had_ come alone. His eyes locked directly onto Yuuri as soon as he finished sweeping the perimeter, barely giving Phichit the time of day. “Yuuri,” he called out, arm extended as if to drag Yuuri over to his side.

And, embarrassingly, Yuuri almost _went_ , his body moving forward before his brain could catch up. Phichit’s hand remained thankfully at his elbow, jerking him back into place and _reality_. A hot flush of shame swept across his cheeks at his own response. The _kumicho_ ’s voice rang in his head, a vicious taunt, full of spite— _just like the dog that you are._

“I’m surprised you actually listened,” Phichit said, distracting Yuuri from any more of his base impulses. “I thought at least you’d have a guard or two. It’s dangerous for your kind around here, these days.”

“And what kind is that, _Phi_?” Viktor asked, voice smooth, sharp enough to cut through the dark. He tilted his head, chin jutting upwards slightly as he regarded Phichit with a cold eye, flittering over to Yuuri for a split-second. “Don’t worry about me. I didn’t come here unprepared.”

Yuuri felt the heat in his face worsen. No way could Phichit have missed that.

“Bratva,” Phichit said, ignoring the second half entirely. They stared at each other, and it felt like a standoff with no guns, just the pure assessment of skills and advantages—with Yuuri firmly in the middle of them both. Yuuri fidgeted, at ready, though he didn’t know what he’d even do if it came down to blows. There was a high-strung hostility in the air that he hadn’t anticipated, and he wasn’t sure where it came from on either end. However, before anything could escalate, Phichit seemed to ease off. His hand slipped from Yuuri’s arm, and he tipped his head towards a door at the edge of the lot. “Let’s talk inside. _Yuuri_ said you needed my services.”

Viktor nodded after a brief pause. The both of them followed Phichit into the building, up a narrow flight of stairs that wound around themselves, all the way to the top landing on the tenth floor. Phichit’s base of operations was located at the far end of a shabby hall, which looked as if it’d seen better days, the carpet worse for wear and wall paint faded beyond recognition of original color. Inside was hardly better, though he could see that Phichit had outfitted some parts of the apartment with his own personal touches—some clothes here and there, a high-end computer in the corner, wires and tools scattered about. Despite itself, it felt cozy, though not a place that Yuuri would have ever thought to see Phichit stay, and that was probably half the reason the Thai chose it as his mainstay.

“How long have you been here?” Yuuri asked as soon as Phichit ushered them inside.

“I booked my flight the minute you used that number.” Yuuri blinked upon hearing that, surprised to find his throat suddenly tight with tears at the swift and candid response. He forced himself to remain seated on the couch, rather than leap up to embrace Phichit with all his strength. The other man was always so, _so_ good to Yuuri even when it wasn’t deserved—and it only made him feel worse to call him now for help.

Phichit smiled at him, as if he knew exactly what thoughts were running through Yuuri’s head without having to hear them out loud. Then he turned to Viktor, and all at once the friendliness on his face vanished, replaced with the distant and impersonal one he used for business. “Yuuri explained to me what was going on,” he said, settling down into his own chair, “and what you’re asking isn’t easy—even for someone as good as _me._ ”

“But can you do it?” Viktor opted to keep standing in the middle of the room, looking around warily at the unfamiliar space. He looked ready to pounce, or to pace, every line in his body filled with tension that radiated from the high set of his jaw to the way his calves and feet flexed even underneath his suit. It was difficult to tell, but Yuuri actually thought he was _nervous_ , or at least extremely unsettled.

Phichit didn’t miss a beat. “You mean track down your stray and his bodyguard?” He shot back with a raised brow. “Definitely. But it’s going to cost you—“

“It doesn’t matter. Whatever you need,” Viktor cut him off.

“So if I said half a million—“

“Done,” was the immediate response. “Our main priority is finding Yuri. We’ve already waited too long.”

Phichit stared at him for some time, grey eyes narrowed, trying to determine if the Russian was bluffing or not.

He wasn’t—that much Yuuri could tell. As soon as money had entered the equation, Viktor almost relaxed, losing the rigidity in his shoulders and back. This was the most confident he’d been all night. Money was something Viktor knew he had, something he could manipulate and dole out and understand. The same couldn’t be said for a hacker as elusive as _Phi_ , who was bound to nothing by either loyalty or contract, except it seemed to _Yuuri_.

Apparently satisfied by whatever he’d seen, Phichit nodded. “Give me twenty-four hours and I’ll have something for you,” he said, rising from his chair into a stretch. “But it’s getting late, and Yuuri over there looks like he’s about to drop dead.”

Yuuri would have protested, except that was the absolute truth. He felt wrung out of emotion. The anticipation, and then the reality of seeing Phichit after all their time apart took its toll. And his body was still in recovery, covered in half-healed and mottled bruises that were tender to the touch. All he wanted was to finally, _finally_ talk to the Thai again and then lay his head down to rest.

However, it seemed that Viktor thought otherwise, because he held his hand out for Yuuri to take. “The hotel’s not far,” he said, angling towards the door. “Mila and Georgi are probably—“

“He’s staying,” Phichit interrupted, in a tone that brokered no argument. “There’s a guest bedroom here. If he wants to stay, he can.”

“I’m not leaving without him,” Viktor shot back, just as adamantly. He didn’t take his eyes off Yuuri as he said it, hand still stretched out towards him. It was an offer, but one Yuuri had no idea what to do with, what to make of.

Thankfully, Phichit saved him the trouble of responding by pulling him bodily off the couch. “You can take the living room, then,” he tossed behind him. So surprised was he that Yuuri let himself be led down a long hallway, barely able to catch a fleeting last glimpse of Viktor’s face before they disappeared behind the nearest doorway.

Phichit slammed the door shut hard enough to shake the frame, leaning back against it for a long beat. When he finally rounded on Yuuri, the expression on his face was so fierce that he had to take a step back, even as the Thai’s hands closed around his shoulders. “Phichit,” he began, not sure what to say, but he had to say _something_ , “I—“

“He knows your name,” Phichit said slowly, not letting him finish the thought. “He. Knows. Your. _Name._ Do you _know_ how dangerous that is? What about your family? Does he know about them, too?”

Yuuri winced, tearing himself away from the other man. “Of course I do,” he snapped back, affronted that Phichit would even _suggest_ he intentionally put his family in danger. “And no, he doesn’t. It isn’t like I go around telling everyone about my family. I haven’t even…”

“…told me,” Phichit finished for him. He gentled his voice, his hands, backing away to give Yuuri some more space once he noticed how close they’d gotten. “Okay, I get it. _I get it._ I’m just worried about you, Yuuri. You know that right?”

Yuuri nodded. Of course he knew—how could he _not_ , when the proof of it was standing right in front of him? Phichit had come all this way on the chance that Yuuri might still be alive, broken his own rules by appearing _in person_ instead of by proxy. And now, he was hosting Yuuri in his mainstay, with Viktor Nikiforov exiled on his couch. The absurdity of it was almost too much to bear, when he put it all together like that.

To keep himself from bursting into hysterical laughter, Yuuri said again, this time with more emotion, “I’m sorry.” _I’m sorry for bothering you with this. I’m sorry for lying. I’m sorry for staying away for so long. I’m sorry about Celestino._

Phichit opened his arms up for a hug, and Yuuri went to him gladly. They squeezed each other tight, and Yuuri felt his shirt grow damp where Phichit’s face was buried. “It’s not your fault,” said Phichit, voice muffled, guessing correctly at what Yuuri meant by his apology. “I don’t know the details, but Celestino knew the risks. If it saved you, then it was worth it to him.”

“I wish”— _I could believe that_ —“he was still here.”

“Me too,” Phichit said. They were quiet for another moment, then the Thai pulled back, smile teary. “But hey, you’re here now. And working with Viktor Nikiforov too! He’s got deep pockets, and a lot of friends. Looks like we’ve finally made it to the big leagues, huh?”

“Yeah, I…” Yuuri trailed off, thinking back to Viktor sitting just outside, of all the complications he brought simply by being _him_. Then the _kumicho_ , and the promise he was clinging to desperately, the idea that he’d be able to go home for good this time. “It’s my last job.”

Phichit reeled back, holding Yuuri at arm’s length. “Seriously?” He asked, and when Yuuri nodded, he probed more softly, “What does he want?”

“He wants me to,” Yuuri swallowed hard, eyes screwed shut and unable to look Phichit in the face, “do what I did with _Lohengrin._ ”

The hands at his shoulders tightened, probably enough to bruise. “Celestino said it almost killed you the last time,” Phichit whispered. He couldn’t tell which one of them was shaking; maybe it was both. “He won’t be here to put you back together again, Yuuri. Are you sure you can do this?”

“I want to go _ho—ome,_ ” Yuuri said. It was the first time he’d said it out loud, instead of keeping it locked up in his head. His voice broke in the middle of it, as if it couldn’t bear the weight of that single word. What did going home even mean, now that he’d become _this_? Would his family still want him there once they saw how broken he was? Would he still recognize it, after all this time? “I want to go home, Phichit. I want to go home.”

Phichit took his hands, bringing the knot of them up between their bodies, like a joint prayer. “Then I’ll help you get there,” he said, so sincerely that Yuuri wanted to cry. “Whatever you need. I owe you that much.”

“Thank you,” was all he could say. “ _Thank you._ ”

Later, they ended up sitting on the floor next to each other. Their backs were against the bed, legs tangled up, hands clasped palm to palm. Phichit’s head was on his shoulder and he kept talking, and talking, and talking about everything he’d done since they last saw each other. Yuuri was grateful; he didn’t have his own good stories to share, and mostly he just wanted to listen until the brightness of Phichit’s voice faded into sleep. When Phichit finally fell silent, his entire body slumped into Yuuri’s, it was late into the night. Yuuri picked him up and made his way out into the hall, where he found Phichit’s bedroom in the farthest corner of the apartment. He tucked the younger man into the unmade bed and smiled when he saw the state of the rest of the room—messy, as always, but so very _Phichit_ that Yuuri’s heart felt warm just being there.

Yuuri stayed there for a few more minutes, until fatigue finally set in and a large yawn pressed its way out of his mouth. He was barely two steps out of Phichit’s room, fully intent on getting some sleep, when he jumped, startled by a dark shape looming at the end of the hall. It took him a heart-stopping moment to recognize it as Viktor. The other man was leaning up against a wall, arms crossed over his chest; his face was half-hidden by shadows, with the barest strip of light from outside illuminating it on one side.

“How long have you been standing there?” Yuuri whispered, hand against his heart, trying to calm his rapid fire pulse. He moved closer to the living room, and away from Phichit’s door so as not to wake him up, with Viktor meeting him halfway down the hall.

Viktor ignored the question, eyes trained on the closed bedroom door behind Yuuri. “You know each other well,” he stated flatly.

“Years,” Yuuri responded, hesitant, not sure how much was safe to reveal. “It’s not our first operation together, if that’s what worries you. _Phi_ is the best at what he does.”

“I wasn’t worried about that,” Viktor said, dismissing the thought entirely. His gaze snapped back to Yuuri, unnaturally bright, though the dark leeched their color away. “I know his reputation. How close are you two?”

“Why is that any of your business?”

“You’re a mystery,” Viktor said, stepping closer and insinuating himself firmly within the circle of Yuuri’s personal space. He backed up, until his spine was flush to the door. One of Viktor’s arms rose up to bracket him against it, and said man leaned forward to close the gap between their faces, leaving them just a breath apart. “The more I see, the more I find myself wanting to know everything about you. I want to figure you out, _Yuuri._ ”

Yuuri shivered, wanting to melt through the door, desperate to get away from Viktor by any means necessary. The other man knew too well what effect he had on Yuuri, used it to his advantage by pressing in close. But the wood remained stubbornly solid. “Nothing to know,” he said, voice wavering into thin air at the end. “In six months, I’ll be free. You won’t see me again.”

“So that’s it?” Viktor asked, the end of his question coming out clipped. “You still won’t consider my offer? What does Minami offer that I do not?”

There was no answer Yuuri could give without betraying himself, his family, entirely. If he told Viktor—about the _kumicho_ , the debt he had to pay, the reason he agreed to this suicide-trap of a mission—what would it really do but exchange one leash for another? At least he understood the _kumicho_ , knew that he traded in power and wealth and fear, despised him for it. But for all Viktor said he was the mystery, Yuuri was only just beginning to understand what drove Viktor and what he was fighting for. Everything else about the man remained elusive, like trying to trap smoke between his fingers.

_Better the devil you know,_ Yuuri had always heard. It was difficult to convince himself of that, caged as he was between Viktor’s body and the door. The offer on the table sounded too good to be true. Mila’s words came flooding back to him; _Viktor takes care of his own_ , she’d said, and he wanted to believe her. Would it be so bad to be owned by someone like him?

The thought was as repulsive as it was seductive.

So Yuuri said nothing, diverting his eyes away from Viktor’s searching gaze. He grabbed the doorknob pressing into the dip of his back, and flinched when, in that same moment, Viktor reached up to touch the side of his face.

“You should go now,” Yuuri said. Or at least he thought he did, could barely hear anything over the sound of his own thundering heart. The fingers on his face stilled, waiting, and Yuuri swallowed hard. “We both need to rest.”

Immediately, Viktor backed off, nodding. Yuuri let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, turning the knob in his now sweaty palm. He wasn’t sure that Viktor would actually listen, unable to predict what the other man was going to do at any given moment, and Yuuri wasn’t sure if he would have said _no_ if he’d kept on touching Yuuri the way he did. That’s exactly what made him so dangerous in the first place.

The door swung open behind him, and Yuuri took a step back, eyes never fully leaving Viktor as he entered the room—not until he managed to shut it closed and lock it, creating a physical barrier between the two of them. He dropped to his knees as soon as the other man was out of sight, losing all the strength in his legs. He pressed his forehead against the wood, listening for the faint sound of footsteps walking away, before he finally let his tears fall, his shoulders shake, all the tension in his body unspooling with something he refused to name as _want._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Mentions of death, violence, prostitution; blackmail; sexual situations.
> 
> [1] Vorovskoy Mir, or “Thieves World,” describing the slang, culture, and laws which govern organized crime in post-Soviet states. 
> 
> [2] January 24th, 11:00 P.M., at the [New Otani Hotel](http://www.newotani.co.jp/en/tokyo/) in Tokyo.
> 
> † The [Dark Net](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet_market), also known as the “dark web,” forms a small part of the deep web that is not indexed by search engines and needs specific software, configurations, and authorization to access. One of the most common requested type of content on the dark net are black markets, which sell and broker a host of illegal services including drugs and arms trades.
> 
> §Phi, or Φ is Phichit’s hacker alias. Used as a symbol for the golden ratio. He signs off using the symbol, rather than the romanization.
> 
> **
> 
> More incredibly lovely people have drawn art for this fic!!!! Thank you so, so, so much!!!!!!!!! 
> 
> The amazing [lamenart](http://lamenart.tumblr.com) gave us this stunning [hitman!Yuuri](http://lamenart.tumblr.com/post/160972898300/a-lot-of-people-requested-more-kintsugi-by).
> 
> [lhcshutupandloveme](http://lhcshutupandloveme.tumblr.com) drew me a precious [Yuuri](http://lhcshutupandloveme.tumblr.com/post/160640620697/quick-yuri-inspired-from-the-mafiaau) who I want to love and protect forever.
> 
> [sleepyfortress](http://sleepyfortress.tumblr.com) literally gave me my life when they drew this amazing [conceptual piece](http://sleepyfortress.tumblr.com/post/160995049973/lamenart-uploaded-new-kintsugi-inspired-fanart-so) inspired by the fic!
> 
> And finally, [domokunrainbowkinz](http://domokunrainbowkinz.tumblr.com) gave us another portrait of my precious, beautiful son [Yuuri](http://domokunrainbowkinz.tumblr.com/post/161015715797/drew-a-thing-for-witchsbanes-fic-kintsugi-which) who doesn’t deserve what I’m putting him through. OTL
> 
>  
> 
> **
> 
> I literally have zero excuses about the lateness of this chapter. Life has been so busy, but summer is here! More time for writing? Maybe. Who knows. Have a 12k chapter. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Enjoy and thank you for your continued support! Your kudos, bookmarks, etc. mean everything to me. I love all your comments and I read them often, because you all are so nice and inspire me to write. Find me at my YOI blog [witchsbane](https://witchsbane.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat/ask me questions/etc.!


	14. Bivium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bivium
> 
> 1\. A place where two roads meet  
> 2\. A pair of alternative means or methods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at end of chapter.

Morning arrived as a dark gray pall that threatened to break into rain. Yuuri roused from sleep unwilling, exhausted from too little rest and too much worry bearing down heavy against his chest. Before coherent thought had the chance to take shape in his conscious mind, his hands were already seeking out the guns stashed beneath the pillow where he lay his head. The touch of cool steel was soothing, settling the heartbeat still rattling from a nightmare he couldn’t quite hold, before he finally remembered where he was and who with.

_Phichit._

One of the few Yuuri trusted with his life. That alone was reason enough to believe it safe, knowing Phichit would have vetted the building inside and out before he considered setting even a single foot through its doors, let alone bringing Yuuri there to rest. He relaxed the vice grip he had around the handle of the gun, then reached back towards the other side of the bed. Only for his hand to encounter empty sheets, rather than the warm body of his friend balled up in the curve of Yuuri’s spine. It was an old habit they’d formed during the early years of their friendship—Yuuri unable to sleep next to somebody, and Phichit unable to sleep alone—so the Thai used to creep into the room on steps so silent Yuuri hadn’t so much as stirred in his sleep. The first time it happened, Yuuri was so startled he’d aimed and nearly fired at the foreign presence in his bed, just the thought of it sending a spike of alarm through him, and it took weeks to earn back the fragile trust between them both.

_You can’t be serious,_ Celestino had said when Yuuri appeared at his doorstep all those years ago. It was raining back then, too, and a young boy was shivering in his arms. Yuuri was six months deep in the aftermath of Lohengrin, a mess of a person, as hollowed out as he’d ever been. Phichit was shy of thirteen, though he looked much younger still, all rounded moon-like face and bird-bone limbs. Yuuri knew nothing about the boy when he made that decision to steal him away, simply saw his empty gray eyes and couldn’t stand the thought of doing _nothing_ , remembering too well the ache of wishing someone had saved him too. Celestino felt differently, though, and took care to list out all the reasons why Yuuri should have left him there. _He’ll be considered a runaway, he has no papers, his pimp will come looking for him._

_Then hide him,_ Yuuri snapped, feeling for the first time in a long while. _You owe me this much._

He found Phichit on a job—with a man who Yuuri had been sent to collect dues from, known to frequent the litany of seedy establishments owned by the Minami-kai in Kabukichō. At least until he could no longer afford to pay his debts, skipping out of the country without so much as a word, in the act of a coward and a thief as the _kumicho_ had said, before setting his dog on the hunt.

His habits, unchanged, were easy to track through the mire of whore houses and casinos and clubs he left in his wake. A path that eventually led to a back alley brothel on the outskirts of Detroit, where Yuuri found him within a minute of stepping inside, putting a bullet through his brain in less than that—money be damned—the feeling of _sick, sick, sick_ roiling wet and dark like a storm in his stomach once he saw who the man had paid for.

It took Phichit weeks to sit in the same room as either of them without flinching away, months before he trusted that no one would hurt him. A year before he could be convinced to come outside, learning to live without fear of being shoved back into a dark place with no windows and no escape.

There was no home to return to in Thailand, so Phichit stayed on as Celestino’s apprentice. He built a name for himself behind the safety of a screen, a place to rest between the shield of Yuuri’s body and a bedroom wall. He became Yuuri’s most faithful friend. Each day that his smile grew brighter and bigger, as if untarnished by all the evil in the world, was one that saved Yuuri from himself, pulled him out from the caving in of his own chest when nothing else could.

Having Phichit was a balm to Yuuri’s battered soul—living proof that he could still _do_ good, even when he was not.

_You can’t save everyone,_ Celestino warned him once, _that is not what you were made for._ And he was probably right. Yuuri was long past redemption now. But still, he wanted to believe that maybe, _somehow_ —

It was Phichit that finally got him out of bed. Yuuri could hear his friend’s voice through the thin bedroom walls, a drift of muffled conversation, followed by a sudden burst of laughter that immediately struck him as odd. There was no way that Phichit would be laughing with Viktor Nikiforov so freely, with the way they’d been at each other’s throats the night before. Curious, Yuuri pulled himself together, shaking off those maudlin thoughts, and crept silently down the long hallway that led into the living room.

Viktor lighted upon him the moment he came into view. Those eyes cut into Yuuri like knives, all the precision of blue steel. It was almost unfair how unruffled the man looked after a night spent on the couch: clothes pressed, hair neatly combed to the side, face smooth and icy, as if he hadn’t slept at all. Maybe not—Yuuri couldn’t imagine him sleeping, had seen him by turns in control and in abandon, yet never at rest.

He wondered if it were even possible for the hard edges of Viktor Nikiforov to soften in dream. Or if, like Yuuri, he was hunted by nightmares.

Determined not to think on it, Yuuri turned from him, and was surprised to see Mila and Georgi sitting on either side of their boss. Phichit was unfazed by their presence. He was settled in the armchair across the couch, barely looking up as he scrolled through a thin tablet in his hands.

“When did you get here?” Yuuri asked. He shifted even further into the periphery of the room, the scene more and more surreal the longer he looked.

Mila smiled at him, pale with exhaustion, likely from staying up too late worrying over them both. She must have thought the worst when they failed to return that night, and he didn't know if Viktor even let her know why. "Not long," she admitted. "We got the message this morning and I was surprised"—suspicious—"to see an unlisted number. I thought you never showed your face, that you didn't get directly involved." That last part she directed at Phichit, who threw her a sunny smile and a peace sign for good measure.

"I don't," Phichit said, hiding his own nervousness behind the bright cheer of his voice; it might have worked, too, if Yuuri were anyone else, "but I make it my business whenever Yuuri's involved." He looked at Viktor as he spoke, and the Russian returned his stare with just as much intensity. The space between them was taut, like rope twisted in on itself one too many times, filled with a tension that Yuuri didn't quite understand.

Yuuri knew Phichit only wanted him _safe_ , but it was a wasted effort. The line he was treading drew thinner by the day, left him little room to run elsewhere. Sometimes it was even at his own hand, by his own doing.

Death loomed a breath away—and already Yuuri had tasted the fine edge of it in Viktor’s kiss, swallowed down mouthful after mouthful of danger as he took his own pleasure from the man who might very well kill him.

That jittery, confused feeling of desire nagged at him once more. It was such an awful thing to _want_ , to crave both Viktor's body and his trust when Yuuri knew there were only two ways for this dalliance to end: to either die, or leave it all behind. That he would stay was not an option. Yuuri crushed the temptation of that offer swiftly beneath his heel whenever it rose up unbidden, though it was harder to do than it should have been.

Viktor had come for him _twice_ already, put himself at the mercy of the unknown on Yuuri's word alone. Whatever the man's own motives were, it at least made Yuuri feel powerful to know he could move him thus, could wrest a little control from a situation careening wildly out of it.

But that, in itself, was a dangerous thought to pursue—one that would crumble in his hands with all the brittleness and treachery of fool's gold if he weren't careful.

So Yuuri set the thought aside for later, for never, forcing all his attention onto the more pressing matter at hand. "Do you have any news on our rabbit?"[1]

Phichit turned to him, suddenly all business. "Yes," the hacker said grimly, "but nothing you'll like." He tapped the tablet several times, then slid the device across the low coffee table sitting at the center of the living room for everyone to see. Yuuri moved closer to the group, seating himself on the arm of his friend's chair.

Somehow, the hacker had gained access to the security feed of what looked to be a major international airport. On the tablet was a still image of a bustling lobby, filled with a crowd of people in a mad dash, dragging their luggage behind them, almost on top of each other with the holiday rush. Yuuri wasn't familiar with the layout of the terminal, meaning it wasn't Sheremetyevo, but could immediately tell it was in Russia when he spied the Cyrillic scrawled across various signs in the background, including a departures-and-arrivals board peeking out from the corner of the screen.

Yuuri scanned through the faces on screen, struck with the sudden realization that he had no idea _who_ or _what_ he was supposed to be seeing. At least until Phichit swiped left and a new photo slid into view. It was of a different airport this time, and immediately Yuuri’s eyes were drawn to a face he recognized from the first image: a man with dark hair, his back turned almost completely to the camera, caught just as he moved to step out of frame. He had strong features, a cut jaw, a body that was slight but not willowy, hidden beneath the drab browns and grays of his clothes. Next to him was the short hooded figure he’d been with previously, hunched over, chin tucked tight into their chest as if trying to disappear into themselves. The lower part of their face was concealed behind a black cloth mask, pulled up high to meet the bottom edge of their sunglasses.

Yuuri reached over from beside Phichit, tapping the screen twice to enlarge a digital display sitting in the background of the still. “Pulkovo and Changi, in that order,” Phichit said, already anticipating his next question.

“So this man is…?”

“Otabek Altin,” Georgi filled in, “one of our _byki_ , and Yura’s personal guard.” From beside him, Viktor looked murderous at even the mention of that name. Which could only mean that his companion was the missing Yuri Plisetsky, Papa Yakov Feltsman’s only grandson and heir. Yuuri scrutinized the photo for more detail, but could glean nothing further behind the mask; the only distinguishing feature on the boy were the wisps of pale blonde hair that escaped his hood.

“Do you have a better photo of _him_?” Yuuri asked, zooming in on the boy’s face until it turned fuzzy and pixelated. “I need to know what I’m working with, and I can’t tell anything from _this_.”

Mila shook her head. “No, at least not with us. Maybe Kolya has some he can send, but the Papa was always so careful not to let anyone take them. It was a security measure after the fifth time…” She trailed off, looking through the corner of her eyes at Viktor.

“After the fifth attempt on my life,” Viktor cut in. His tone was smooth and unbothered, as if he were discussing nothing more than the weather outside. Yuuri remembered vividly when each of those bounties went up, the highest on the market, and all for the head of one man. A boy, really, because Viktor was only sixteen then, though with the reputation of someone twice his age and thrice his experience. There were rumors that the Russian had thwarted each attempt with his own bare hands, hunted down the men who placed the hits himself, made them beg for their lives as they called off the dogs and shot them in the head anyway. No one could be sure what was true or false—only that the bounty rose each successive time it was removed, until the last had been so high no hitman worth their salt bothered to take it on. The risk was too great, and money was only good so long as one was alive to enjoy it.

Yuuri himself thought it a death sentence when the _kumicho_ first gave him that impossible task. Anything else he might have accomplished, no matter how absurd, given enough persistence and resources. But to dispatch the Pakhan-to-be of the Feltsman Bratva? What else could it be but a punishment, when no one survived a direct confrontation with Viktor Nikiforov and lived to tell the tale.

Except for him now, apparently. Though he owed that more to cowardice and luck, rather than any special skill on his own part. And even then, it was uncertain how long he’d live when the weight of his secret hung perilous above his head, like a razor sweeping downwards, lower and lower the closer they came together.

“So they’re in Asia,” Georgi said, interrupting Yuuri’s train of thought. “We knew that already. What we need is new information: where they’re headed after, who’s helping them, what their plan is.”

“If you’d let me finish,” Phichit said evenly, snatching the tablet up from the coffee table. Yuuri looked over his shoulder as he fiddled with it, deft fingers pulling up file after file in quick succession. “Actually, it’s kind of funny—your stray has been on my radar for a lot longer than I expected, and I didn’t even realize until you came to me for help.”

“What are you talking about?” It was Viktor who spoke this time around.

“What do you know about a hacker who calls himself the ICE TIGER?” Phichit glanced up from his work, waiting for an answer that no one provided. Yuuri didn’t recognize the name, having only a passing knowledge of the way information flowed in Phichit’s circles; he cultivated few contacts apart from those he absolutely needed, especially from those who traded exclusively in open-ended favors such as hackers. Phichit clicked his tongue, disappointed. “Really? Well, I guess he is pretty new to the scene, but extremely good. Which is why it caught my attention when he started asking around for a forger to repro him some papers, saying he had to fly the coop. I didn’t really think much about it at the time, because Asia’s underground went on high alert after all that…unpleasantness with the Lees and the Feltsmans, and travel was hard for everyone.”

Viktor tensed in his seat. All the Russians did at the grim reminder of why they were in Japan to begin with. There was an expression on Viktor’s face that Yuuri could only call hate, as if the very name _Lee_ came with it a bad aftertaste. It reminded Yuuri of the night they met, the second time around, when the Russian approached him in that seedy bar in Kabukichō, declaring his intention to hunt down an army of men who he believed wronged him until they were nothing but ashes, the lure of his proposal bright in his mouth.

Yuuri could practically taste it in his own, but it was bitter and jagged and bloody. It took all his effort not to shrink away from the conversation, lest he make it too obvious how close those words struck home.

“Get to the point,” Viktor snapped, thankfully in full agreement, “can you tell me where he is, or not?”

“Down to the minute he left, the alias he used, and what he ordered during his in-flight meal,” Phichit said, unfazed. “Your stray _is_ the ICE TIGER. I’ve been tracking him and his friend since before they even left Russia.”

There was a brief pause, lasting only a heartbeat or two, before Mila cut in. “Are you sure?” She couldn’t help the trill of hope from coloring her voice. Not that Yuuri blamed her; it was Mila, after all, who spent restless hours on the phone and online, using all her contacts to trace the missing Yuri Plisetsky across borders and through the criminal underworld, only to come up empty each time. It must have been maddening and worrying, in equal measure.

Phichit offered her a smile and a nod, handing her the tablet directly. From his perch, Yuuri watched as she swiped through the opened files, confusion clouding her expression as she read through the documents. They were blank templates of the Russian passport; Yuuri recognized the carmine red and aubergine Cyrillic stamped across the front, the blank square on the far left where a photo would have fit, though he was too far away to see properly.

“I was their forger,” Phichit explained when Mila finally looked up at him, understanding dawning on each of their faces. It made a strange kind of sense—why all their leads turned up only dead ends, and how Phichit had ferreted out their rabbit so quickly. The hacker was efficient, so clean in his work that few could find fault enough to be suspicious, but the speed with which he found this information seemed absurd until that revelation. “I did everything but the photos. We’re all very careful not to show each other our true faces, so I didn’t even question why he needed to go underground. I’ve done it enough for Vicchan—Yuuri—to know not to ask questions by now, but it only really made sense when he told me what airport your stray left out of. From there, it was easy to put two and two together.”

"So that's it, then." Viktor took the tablet from Mila, reading for himself what was there. His lips traced soundlessly over the false names: _Dmitri Soloviev_ was the first, and the second was _Sergei Voronov_. Innocuous names, generic enough to get easily lost amongst the shuffle of information, especially to undiscerning eyes. "You can contact them, tell Yuri to come home.”

"It's not that simple," Phichit said with a regretful shake of his head. Because it rarely ever was, in Yuuri's experience. "There are protocols to follow, things we do. The earliest I could ask for a meeting would be—maybe a week, probably two? Assuming we even find a place that would pass both our background checks in that timeframe. We're a skittish bunch, and if I don't do this right, then you don't _get_ a second chance. He'll go dark, and I wouldn't blame him." There was a long pause as they each digested the information. Yuuri could tell, from knowing Phichit so well, that the hacker was working up to something else, most likely even worse news. "That's not your only problem, either," he said, as predicted. "Lee Seung-gil is no idiot. There have been open contracts on your entire family since before the New Year. Even if no one knows what your stray looks like _yet_ , people know that bringing the head of a Russian to the _sajang-nim_ means getting an in with one of the most influential families in Asia. Finding him will be hard, especially if you want to keep it quiet.”

"We don't have the _time_ —"

"But you _do_ have a way," Yuuri said, interrupting Viktor before he could go any further. This was a statement of fact; if it were truly hopeless, then Phichit would have said so from the beginning.

"There is a way," Phichit conceded, only to repeat his earlier warning, "but nothing you'll like."

 

* * *

  

Mila was in the best position to go with Yuuri, by virtue of the fact that she was the least conspicuous. Neither Viktor nor Georgi were particularly pleased to let her go. While well trained with a pistol herself, Mila was also the least experienced of the three, and sometimes the difference between life or death meant exactly that—the speed with which she could make a judgement, draw her gun, shoot to kill. These were not skills to be honed in an operation this hot, where split seconds decided the outcome of a fight, but they had little choice in the matter. Viktor's face was too well known where they were headed, Georgi too obviously Russian to be ignored.

But a girl like Mila, who was pretty and exotic, with her red hair and fair skin and blue eyes, would not have been out of place in the seedy underbelly of Kabukichō, no matter the attention she drew.

That didn't mean Viktor and Georgi had to _like_ it, and both tried to persuade her otherwise, though Mila ended up being as stubborn as they when it came to proving her worth to the group. Yuuri would have agreed with them had he been given a say, content to worry only about his own safety, if not for the fact that he needed her there. He had no idea what their rabbit looked like, aside from pale blonde hair and a smallish frame, and Viktor didn't care about the guard at all.

In the end, Mila got her way, as if there were any doubts—and so she was seated beside him in Viktor's sleek black car, adjusting the holster strapped tight and flat around her thigh.

They were dressed like _hosts_ , which was the polite term for _whores_ where they were going. Mila wore a dress that rode down low on her chest and high up her thighs. Yuuri matched her in a shirt whose collar plunged into a deep valley down his torso, showing too much of his naked skin, his bared throat. It was the best they could do in a matter of days: too cheap and they ran the risk of getting kicked out, too expensive and someone would inevitably notice. Their clothes mattered almost as much as their attitude, an extra detail that completed the scene, which is what he told Mila as they drove down the backstreets to their destination.

"Act stupid," he advised, flexing his fingers over the steering wheel, "like you can't understand them. Just another _gaikokujin_ there to have fun, to spend her money on drinks and drugs and boys—"

"Girls, too," Mila corrected, with a cool smirk on her lips that petered out as quickly as it had come. "I mean, sorry. No jokes. Is that what you do?”

He nodded, the breath squeezing out of him like the press of an air pump, all pressure, all noise, no relief. "Yes," he said, swallowing down the lump in his throat. "It's easier when they think you have nothing to say. People tell you more, expect less. They forget you're there, and then they forget you entirely."

" _I find it hard to believe anyone could forget you,_ " Viktor said.

Yuuri flinched, having forgotten Viktor was _there_ , though his presence was reduced to a speaker in the shell of an ear, a mic pinned to the inside of a shirt. From the corner of his eye, Yuuri watched the rearview mirror. A white sedan followed them two cars back. The windows were tinted black, but he knew Viktor was there behind the wheel, Georgi beside him, acting as backup just in case.

“You’d be surprised,” he muttered under his breath.

It was too low for the mic to catch, but not for Mila, who gave him a searching look through the rearview mirror herself. She reached up to press the mic into his skin, doing the same with her own so as to muffle out their conversation from listening ears.

“Okay, now _talk_. What’s going on with you two?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, going for neutral and unaffected, though the tightness in his throat told him to _deny, deny, deny_ whatever she said.

Mila wasn’t fooled for a moment. She applied more pressure onto the mic, digging deeper into the skin of his collarbone, where Yuuri was sure he’d find the imprint of it later. “I’m not _actually_ stupid,” she said. “You two are sleeping together. Honestly, I thought it would make things _less_ tense, not more.”

His attention snapped immediately to her, hands tightening into white bands around the steering wheel. For a heartbeat, Yuuri contemplated twisting them, swerving the car into the nearest pole to avoid the conversation altogether. “How…?” The question came out strangled. A hot flush of shame rode high on his cheeks, wrapped around his neck at the thought of anyone knowing.

“Viktor’s not exactly subtle when he wants something,” she said, eyeing him. “Or someone. Not really his style, and we’ve both been with him long enough to know what that looks like. The real question is: what are _you_ hoping to get out of it?”

That at least made him laugh. Because the answer was nothing, and everything. Yuuri wanted his life back, his family safe, to get away from the mess he created when he was too weak to pull that trigger a second time. But he couldn’t say that to Mila, or anyone really, without having his secrets unravel, like pulling apart the knot holding all the threads of him together.

So he said nothing instead, stared plainly at the road ahead and let the silence sit heavy as a stone between them.

Mila sighed. “I’m not asking you to spill your guts,” she said, though that was exactly what she wanted, “but be honest with me about this. Because we love Viktor—and right now, he’s taking a huge risk bringing you into all this. Yuri is…important, to all of us, but especially to him. I want to know you won’t use this against him.”

The threat of those words sunk in him bone deep, to the very bottom of his stomach. It wasn't as if he were begging for scraps at their table, for slips of their secrets and private confidences. He would have preferred to let things lie as they were, to finish out his six months without gaining any more ammunition to press into the hands of the _kumicho_. Already they were at risk just by keeping him so close, like sleeping with their heads pillowed by a loaded gun.

"Has he asked to buy out your contract yet?" Mila asked suddenly, and Yuuri felt his breath stall.

"You know about that?"

"I wasn't sure until now"—he bit his lip bloody at the slip—"but I suspected as much. Viktor likes you. I'd be more surprised if he didn't offer." And there it was again, still as unbelievable as the first time around, this idea that Viktor could one day consider Yuuri his own. _Owned_. "What did you say?"

Yuuri shook his head, forced his heart to make the next words truth. "I'm not interested," he _denied, denied, denied_. "I don't want..." Another silence settled over them, heavier than the last, and neither of them spoke for a long while.

Then, "He doesn't ask just anyone."

"But children are fair game?" It came out before Yuuri could stop himself, a hot flash of anger that fizzled out before it could burn. He knew at once it was the wrong thing to say.

Mila's lips pursed in the mirror, as if she were sucking her teeth. "What do you know about it?" she snapped. "You япошки, on your high horses. As if you know what it is to be hungry and cold and desperate, to wonder about your next meal, the next time you'll get a warm bed. We do what we have to, what we—" There was a sharp, bitter note to her voice as she bit it off. Yuuri's knuckles bleached white over the steering wheel. _I know, I know,_ he wanted to tell her, strip open his guts like she wanted him to, _me too, I know._ "Sometimes you don't get a choice with what you do to survive.” [2]

"I know."

Nothing else was said for the remainder of the trip. Mila took her hand off his chest to uncover the mic, the both of them pretending as if the conversation hadn't happened at all. No one actually drove in that part of Tokyo, so Yuuri wandered until he found a safe place to stash the car, in a skinny nook crammed between two tall buildings, a few streets shy of their destination. He stashed the keys in the wheel well, in case only one of them made it back.

That was a morbid thought. A worst case scenario, really, because this was only supposed to be a grab-and-go: find their rabbit, then disappear as quickly and cleanly as a magic trick. But rarely was anything that simple, and it was always better to have a contingency plan than not when careening head first into enemy territory.

" _We won't be far,_ " Viktor's voice drifted through both their speakers, " _in case you need us._ " He and Georgi were lying in wait, their car parked in a busier part of the neighborhood to avoid notice. They would only be a distraction, doing more harm than good if they were spotted too early on.

"It'll be fine, Vitya," Mila murmured. She wrapped herself around Yuuri's arm, leaning her entire weight against his side so she could speak directly into his mic. From that close, Yuuri could feel her limbs coiled tight and hard with nervous tension.

"We will be," Yuuri assured her, steeling himself as they stepped out into the open street. Immediately they were swallowed up by the crowd, streams of people passing on either side of them, pressing them closer together. He looked down at her, clasped his hand where hers was digging into his bicep. "Just follow my lead, and remember what I said."

"Act stupid, got it." The edginess in her voice was fading, though not yet gone. Their earlier conversation was seemingly forgiven—or perhaps simply forgotten—to make room for their task. This was more important, and they both needed clear heads and cooperation if this was going to work.

Kabukichō at night was always a wonder. Storefronts were illuminated by sign after neon sign, casting strips of lurid light over the busy street. They were drowned in a wash of bright color the moment they emerged from the mouth of the dark alley, and it made everything feel electric, simultaneously too exposed and somehow lost in the shuffle of the crowd.

Though Yuuri was familiar enough with the rest of the neighborhood, that particular area was one he usually avoided. Almost every business down the block was affiliated with the various Korean and Chinese gangs staking their claim in Japan. Only ten years back, when the push to clean up the streets of Kabukichō was in full force, Yuuri would have been shot on sight at the mere suspicion he was working for a rival group. Every gang in the city had their hackles raised for a fight, territories eked out and defended with the ferocity of wild dogs pissing on posts. †

At the end of Governor Ishihara's two decades in office, each club and bar and casino in Tokyo had been painstakingly fought for. Private wars were waged with each other, while the police ensued a public manhunt for the local Yakuza running their rackets. The Minami-kai were reduced to a shadow of their former power during those years. They saw their customers poached by bigger groups, their recruits run off or beaten to death or arrested in their very own territories. Yuuri, too young at the time to be useful to the cause, had taken the brunt of the _kumicho_ 's anger—over his ever weakening gang, over the loss of his businesses, over the death of a no-good son who had run away instead of taking responsibility for the family he was set to inherit.

The lines were more blurred now, and while people no longer shot each other in the streets, it was no less dangerous for him to be lurking there. Especially on the orders of a man named Public Enemy Number One in Asia's criminal underworld.

Yuuri was nervous, and rightfully so. But there was no room for the jumble of his emotions as they approached the Korean-owned club at the end of the block. Phichit had it on good authority that their rabbit was scoping the area, having himself passed along a tip that the Ji and Lee clans were set to meet sometime that week. How Phichit came across this information, Yuuri would never know, but his friend had done everything in his power without risking his neck.

Catching Yuri Plisetsky was now in their hands, a matter of timing and luck. Yuuri hoped that once was enough, but there was no guarantee their rabbit would even be there at the same time. They could only come back to the same club so many times without drawing suspicion, before the staff recognized them and began to wonder why they came back night after night, as if there were no other places in Tokyo to be.

The crowd grew denser as they approached, younger, hooked in by the rhythmic bass pulsing like a heartbeat from the open doors. It was easy slipping through the line with Mila on his arm; the bouncer’s eyes slid over her slicker than oil on water, barely paying attention to Yuuri as they passed. It was dark when they got inside, save for the flashing strobe lights overhead. Everything smelled of the sourness of sweat and alcohol. The air tasted cloyingly hot in his mouth.

“ _No more than an hour,_ ” Viktor reminded them, as if it were necessary, his voice muffled by the music roaring from the DJ booth, “ _then I want you both out of there._ ”

Yuuri was not about to argue with an order he very much agreed with, though it left them little time to waste. They found a good vantage point on the second floor landing, which circumscribed the room and offered a wide view of the sunken dance pit. Mila leaned precariously on the ledge, balanced on her high heels, torso folded over the rails to get a better angle. In her hand was the half-emptied glass she plucked from a passing tray, from which she pretended to take sips, and combined with the skimpy outfit she wore made her look every inch the drunk party girl she pretended to be.

But her eyes gave her away, filled as they were with a laser-focused intensity that belied any disguise. Once in a while they’d light upon a pale head weaving through the crowd and she’d perk up, only to visibly deflate at the sight of yet another red herring that made her think maybe, _maybe_ —

Suddenly she took his arm, snapping to attention so quickly that she teetered backwards into a hard fall before Yuuri caught her. She twisted in his grasp, twining her arms around his waist to bring them closer. “Blonde by the bar,” she whispered, mouth by his ear. “I can’t tell for sure, but it could be him. Should I…?”

Yuuri followed the tilt of her head, to a lone figure in the far corner of the room. His eyes snagged on the suspicious amount of guards standing stolidly by the nearest exits along the way. “No,” he told her with a shake of his head. “It’s probably safer if I go. Just—give me something he’ll recognize, a code so he knows the message is from you.”

There was a brief pause as she thought it over. “Yurochka,” Mila eventually decided. “That’s what Kolya—his grandpa, that is—calls him. He’ll answer to that.”

With that, Yuuri left her on the landing, making his long way around the room, down the steps, until he was once more at the center of the dancing crowd. Wading through it was like running underwater: difficult, slow going. The dense crush of bodies forced him to match their movements tide for tide, so as not to get stomped underfoot. But there was no pushing past them to go faster, unless he wanted to draw attention to himself in the middle of pursuit or to his target to any watching eyes.

It took some time to reach the bar, and Yuuri was covered in a fine sweat by the end of it. Luckily, the blonde had stayed put, nursing a bottle of beer in one hand, while the other crept flirtatiously up the arm of a dark-haired man leaning on the counter beside him. Yuuri hesitated, thinking perhaps he’d stumbled upon their rabbit in the process of cruising, not sure if he was that _careless_ so as to do it in enemy territory of all places, and if so how to proceed. But there was no more time to waste, and so he mustered up his nerves and slid up next to the pair, waving over the bartender to order his own drink. As he did, Yuuri knocked his elbow deliberately into the blonde’s back just hard enough to catch his attention.

“Watch it—“ The blonde swiveled in his seat, curse dying on his lips when he saw how close Yuuri was standing. A slow, drunken smile spread over his face. “Hello there.”

Yuuri studied him, trying to see in him any trace of that hunched figure from the security footage. The blonde was young, but not _fifteen young_. Still, that was only a guess. He could have looked older than Yuuri was expecting, as he had no idea what their target might look like, relying on Mila’s judgement entirely. All he had was the message.

“Hello,” Yuuri finally said, at the same time reaching over to grasp the blonde’s arm, fearing a potential flight risk. But instead of freezing, the other shifted towards him. “Yurochka?” Yuuri asked, growing more and more hesitant. Something felt off about the situation. “I have a message from your grandpa.”

There was no recognition in the blonde’s face—only confusion so genuine that Yuuri was hard pressed to believe it an act. “My grandpa?” the blonde repeated, bemused. “What are you talking about?”

“Yurochka,” Yuuri tried more urgently. “Kolya wants to talk to you.”

Again, the blonde smiled, shaking his head. “I’m not Yurrchka, or whatever, but we can still talk.” His free hand slid up Yuuri’s arm, the way it did earlier with the dark-haired man being snubbed beside them.

Yuuri backed off quickly. “Sorry,” he said, taking the opportunity to swipe his drink from the bartender, and with it the blonde’s wallet carelessly left out on the counter. “I must have mistaken you for someone I knew, happens all the time.” Before anything else could be said, Yuuri left and headed straight for an empty hallway in the opposite direction of the bar. He pried the wallet open as soon as he was hidden from plain sight, shuffling through its contents. The leather was a scuffed, buttery brown, inside were two credit cards and a handful of bills and an American I.D. instead of a Russian one. Yuuri ran his thumb over the picture, the blonde’s face made unattractive by harsh light, and tried to convince himself it was another fake, a different one that their rabbit had gotten after Phichit’s.

But the I.D. looked as worn in as the wallet itself, the credit cards all authentic— _VALID FROM 10/2015_ was embossed on the first, _09/2014_ on the second.

“Fuck.”

“ _Yuuri? What happened?_ ” He could hear Viktor’s voice more clearly in the hall, where the music was muffled out by the thick walls. He’d almost forgotten it was there in the first place.

Ignoring the question for a moment, Yuuri pulled out his emergency burner phone and dialed the number listed on one of the credit cards. It rang only once before an automated voice picked up, prompting him to type in the card number on his keypad. He did so carefully, waited in bated breath for it to either go through or be declined, then hissing through his teeth when his suspicions were confirmed. _Thank you for banking with us today, Mr. Jason Brown. How can we help you?_ He tried the other number, and it was the same. _Thank you for banking with us today, Mr. Jason Brown. How can we help you?_

The credit cards were genuine, and probably the name on the I.D. as well. Unless their rabbit had been planning to slip away for months—unlikely—so he had enough time to seed the accounts, it was unlikely that _Jason Brown_ was the one they were looking for.

“Tell Mila it was a red herring,” Yuuri finally said into the mic, snapping his phone closed. “I’m heading back her way.”

“ _Head out once you find her, since your hours is almost up. Something’s happening outside, heavy security just pulled into the block and I don’t want you two staying long. We’ll try again another night._ ”

Yuuri didn’t need to be told twice, about to do just that when a gust of air suddenly whistled through his ears. A cool draft sucked out to the end of the corridor, which was longer than he initially believed. Pale streetlight slashed into the dark, from an unmarked door he hadn’t seen the first time around. Yuuri flattened himself into the wall, against a shallow niche carved out by the two thick beams at either side of him.

Four men stepped into the entryway: the first two hulking figures in black, clearly armed and dangerous, followed more sedately by two in bespoke suits. To his surprise and dread, Yuuri recognized one of them as Ji Guang Hong from the disastrous raid in Kitakyushu. A shiver ran icy and sharp up his spine. That man was a collaborator of the Lee Family’s, and it was no coincidence he was _here_ of all places. Their guards broke off from the group in his direction, while Ji and his companion, another young man, brown-haired and tan, took a sharp left up a staircase that Yuuri could now see in the dim light. His breath hitched, tight and still in his chest, heart frozen mid-beat as the guards walked past his hiding place. They positioned themselves at the mouth of the corridor to keep watch, their backs turned fully to him. They hadn’t noticed.

But Yuuri was now trapped.

“ _Yuuri, can you hear me? Mila can’t find you in the crowd. Time’s up._ ”

Yuuri pressed a palm to his chest, silencing the thunder of his heartbeat as if Viktor could hear it over the mic. He weighed his options, and found only two that didn't lead to immediate and imminent death: either he continued to hide and prayed not to get caught a second time around, or he made a run for the door before a bullet could bite him in the back. Neither sounded particularly appealing, relying too much on chance. On the guards not turning to see him, on the music masking his steps, on no one standing just outside the exit. Mila was waiting for him on the second floor landing; Viktor was waiting for a response over the line.

Too bad there was no time to give it. Yuuri was going to try for the door.

In a single practiced motion, he withdrew the gun tucked beneath his shirt. It was a solid weight in his grasp, warm and ready to fire as soon as he released the safety. The music was thankfully still pounding on the dance floor, in full swing with the night at its peak. He waited for the perfect opportunity, the moment just before the beat dropped— _dun dun_ —the crowd swelled in excitement, hitched their collective breath— _dun dun_ **dun—** and then—

They _roared_ , and Yuuri darted towards the door. Noise bounced in the echo chamber of the corridor to conceal his movements. He could barely hear over the cheers, not the rush of blood in his ears, not his footsteps striking hard against the floor. But he felt every inch as he drew closer to the exit, his free arm already stretched out for the knob, trying to twist before his fingers even wrapped around it, heavy as the gun in his hand.

It was locked.

He twisted the knob again, and again, but it didn't budge. It rattled uselessly in the door itself, rather than pushing outwards towards freedom. Yuuri looked behind him, hands sweating, trying to gauge how far his niche in the wall was. The guards were still turned around, oblivious. And then his hand slipped, knocking his gun against the wood.

_THUNK._

The sound travelled, and at once Yuuri knew hiding in the niche was no option. He looked desperately around for something, anything to do, his arm raised and ready to fire the first shot. The stairs snagged at the corner of his eye.

Before he could think too much about it, Yuuri sprinted upstairs, making his way around the top bend of the stairwell just as the guard approached the back door to take a closer look. There was a sound, of a key fitting into a lock, then a cool breeze drifted in from the outside. Yuuri's heart leapt into his throat, and he bit his tongue to keep from breathing too loud. It was the longest minute of his life, waiting until the guard was satisfied enough to leave, but there was no going back the way he came, and no escape to be found as the door swung definitively shut.

_“Yuuri—answer me. Or I’m coming to find you.”_

Yuuri bit his lip so hard it bled, and the pain of it bloomed sharp and metallic in his mouth. _Yes, yes, come get me, please,_ was his first and most dangerous thought, because having Viktor there was guaranteed to make things worse. His throat was thick as tar when he next spoke: “I’m stuck. Have Mila go on without me.”

_“What do you mean you’re stuck? What happened?”_

He slid down the wall on weak knees, trying to formulate an answer, thinking about what he could have, should have done differently. _Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ he chanted in his head, and would have continued to do so if it weren’t for the dire situation he was in. Self-recrimination would have to wait; right now, he needed to focus on finding a way out.

The stairwell led up into another empty corridor, as long and dark as the first, ending in a sharp bend where soft, dim light spilled out from another room. “I know why there’s so much security around,” Yuuri said, deflecting the question. “Ji, the same one from Kitakyushu. He’s in the building.”

_“Yuuri. Tell me what happened.”_ This time, Viktor’s voice brokered no argument and no evasion. Yuuri tried to imagine what expression might be on his face, but came up blank.

“I,” he hesitated, “I needed a quick place to hide, but there are guards blocking my only exit now.” Then he added for good measure, “No one saw me. Mila’s cover is safe.”

_“That’s not what I meant—“_

“I’ll be fine,” Yuuri interrupted, trying hard to believe it himself. He wasn’t sure what Viktor wanted if not that. “Just…I’ll be fine. Please tell her to go.” There was a silence that stretched out over the line, a static drone followed by Georgi’s soft confirmation that Mila was headed to the nearest exit. He staggered up from his slouch, heartbeat coming a little easier after hearing that; he wasn’t sure he could get out without a fight. The gun was clutched tight in his hand, held fast to the level of his eyes. There was only one way to go from there.

There was a private lounge at the bend of the corridor, whose elegance was at odds with the dingy club below it. Yuuri could only see a fraction of the room from his vantage point around the corner, but could tell at once that it was lovely. The furnishings were done up in muted shades of black and dove gray, with crystalline glass sparkling overhead to refract and diffuse light. Ji was seated on a low leather couch, his companion standing idly behind him. In front of them was an older man, Korean by the looks of it, though no one he immediately recognized.

Ji spoke softly, but his voice carried with it a chilling authority. “…so much trouble. Hard to believe he’s just one man.”

“We don’t know for sure the incident is related,” the Korean said hurriedly. “We’re working on getting Park released, but so far INTERPOL and the National Police have been more difficult to persuade than usual.”

“Clearly,” Ji deadpanned. “What’s being done to ensure this doesn’t happen again? Grandfather is impatient to have this ordeal settled, for both your family and mine.” Yuuri could see the distant impression of a smile on the boy’s face, mirrored in his companion as they shared a look. “And Leo’s too, of course. After the shipment he painstakingly arranged was seized.”

“W-we have a contact! An informant in Feltsman’s inner circle. They’ve been given a very _generous_ incentive to let us know their next movements, especially on what Nikiforov is doing in Asia.”

It was fascinating to see the Korean mobster kowtow to Ji, though he was the elder between the two by a factor of decades. Both Ji and his companion—friend, maybe—or guard—were unfairly young, faces still chased by the softness of childhood, and Yuuri felt slightly sick to realize how entangled they were in this dirty business when they were hardly grown themselves. And his thoughts kept circling back to the way Ji had said _grandfather_ with such significance, knowing it was important, but unable to figure out _how_. He kept the thought tucked away for later, if there was a later, when it was safe.

There were so many things he didn't know, pieces to the puzzle he was missing that kept him from seeing it whole.

Ji's companion laid a hand over the back of the couch. "The same one that couldn't tell you where Nikiforov was until he was already across the border? Doesn't seem like a very good one, if you ask me.”

“Leo—“ the man appealed.

“Mr. de la Iglesia,” was the sharp response, combined with a hard stare. The censure was met with a flinch that put a smile on _Leo de la Iglesia_ ’s face. Yuuri had heard that name before—someone Phichit had worked with a number of times in the past. He was a cleaner, and a talented one at that, able to scrub out a scene in a matter of hours, to spirit away evidence from right under the eyes of the law. Yuuri had considered contacting him after Sochi, in an effort to retrieve Celestino’s body from Russia, now terribly glad that he hadn’t. “If your people can’t handle knocking Yakov Feltsman down a peg or two, then…”[3]

Yuuri touched where the mic was pinned into the lining of his shirt. The conversation was probably too faint for the device to pick up, yet still, he wondered what Viktor would have thought had he heard. The feud was escalating, rapidly, dangerously so, with more than just the Lees and Feltsmans raising the stakes. Yuuri wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

All he knew was that a lot more blood would be spilt before this was through.

“We can handle it just fine. Nikiforov is nothing more than a distraction.” The Korean scowled, the lines around his mouth deepening, making him seem much older. “Actually, Lee _sajang-nim_ requested your presence tonight because he has a proposition for Mr. de la Iglesia,” he said, and looked pained as he did so, as if the words were teeth being pulled forcibly out of his mouth. “Park Min-so knows too much about our current operations to be left in Japanese custody for long—we’d like for you to retrieve her for us.”

“My contract is with Guang Hong,” de la Iglesia replied automatically. Then, after a moment, “And I don’t normally handle live packages.”

“Negotiable. If you can’t get her out alive”—here, the Korean reached into his jacket, fishing for a small box the perfect size for a ring, which he then slid over to Ji—“then we’d prefer her dead, rather than compromise our plans. We have too much riding on the next few weeks.”

Whatever Ji took out from the box was too small for Yuuri to see, but he didn’t need to. “Cyanide?” Ji asked. “One of the worst ways to die. She’d probably prefer a bullet to the brain instead.”

“No better than what she deserves, if she really has been leaking our secrets to the police. According to Lee _sajang-nim_ , good deaths are reserved only for good men.”

Yuuri blanched though the statement was not directed at him. There was a spot in the back of his jaw that ached of emptiness, hollowed out between his cheek and the wall of his teeth enough for a capsule of poison. It was strange to think that he could miss something so terribly as carrying death, held like a pearl in his mouth. And yet—

He’d been furious when the _kumicho_ first gave him the ampoule, believing it a taunt, binding him to either a life of service or death. There was no way out for him back then. But in the long years since, Yuuri learned that death in itself was a type of freedom, and though he was afraid of the unknown of it still, understood now that there were worse things than being given a chance to meet it on his own terms. He felt an odd sort of kinship with Park Min-so in that moment. It took a certain kind of bravery to give one’s self over to death, and he pitied her even as he worked to ensure her end.

A sharp ringing cut through the conversation, as well as Yuuri’s own morbid thoughts. He moved a little closer to the entrance of the lounge, using the distraction to look for a more suitable hiding place.

There were none.

“Yeoboseyo,” the Korean answered. An undecipherable chatter filled his pause, sounding like birds through the cellphone speaker. Yuuri held his breath, waiting, waiting, wondering if they somehow found out. A thread of baseless panic wove itself through him as he thought of Mila. Did she get out undetected? Did she make it to the car? To the rendezvous with Viktor and Georgi? They surely would have told him if not. His palms were sweating against the warm handle of his gun. “Ah…arasso, yes. Bring them up here.” The conversation ended quickly, the phone set down on the table with a soft clink.

Ji looked up from the capsule in his hand. “So?”

“We have some uninvited guests causing trouble downstairs,” the Korean said, by way of apology. “It won’t take long to deal with, then we can get back to business.”

Yuuri turned, gazing down the long throat of the corridor. The bass thumping through the walls was muffled, but if he concentrated enough, he could hear the sound of struggling underneath it. Someone was shouting. It was a young voice, a boy’s voice, and the guttural scrape of it sent Yuuri’s heart into overdrive. “Отпусти меня! Сука!”

A group of them came up the stairwell, the three behind pushing forward the two in front. Yuuri saw them before they saw him: a quick flash of pale hair escaping a deep hood, the dark hair and features he’d seen zoomed in on a frozen security still, and the uniformed personnel who had been guarding the exits. The reflex of his arm was quicker than the thoughts blazing through his head. He raised the gun, eyes locked on the target, finger on the trigger.

The suppressor caught the sound, and the music smothered it further until it was nothing but a quick rip of air. The first guard fell in the space of a breath. No one moved, trying to process the guard’s sudden collapse, his choked off cry, even the two hostages too shocked to make a break for it. That was all Yuuri needed. Before their eyes could light upon him standing in the shadowed corner, he turned the barrel of his gun towards the one holding their rabbit. When he pulled the trigger his aim was true, a spray of blood bursting from between the next guard’s eyes, his body falling, taking the blonde down with him.

_Be fast, fall like a thunderbolt,_ he heard the _kumicho_ whisper in his head, lessons ringing clear as a bell. _Hesitation means death, and you are not allowed to die._

_Not yet._

He was clear across the hallway in seconds, but the last guard had finally regained his bearings enough to draw out a weapon. Yuuri dodged left, shoulder crashing hard against the wall just as a bullet streaked past his head. The crack of it echoed without a suppressor, and there was no way the three in the lounge could have missed it. They’d be at his back soon.

A dull throb lanced up his shoulder, but that was fine. Pain was a clarifying force. It allowed him to focus on the task at hand, the world slowing down until all he could feel was the sharp burn of his muscles as he moved. Each beat stretched out like being dragged through water.

Yuuri couldn’t shoot from such a short distance, not without risking the hostage—Otabek Altin, the _byk_ —the fool, Viktor had dubbed him—but the guard was readying to shoot once more. In a burst of speed he rushed at them, until they all bowled over underneath his momentum. There was a pained gasp as the gun clattered uselessly out of the guard’s hand. Yuuri was on them, pushing Altin aside, pressing the barrel of his gun between the enemy’s eyes, pulling the trigger.

Two seconds, maybe three. There was no time to waste.

A sharp move snagged at the corner of his eye. Yuuri turned, just in time to see their rabbit wiggle out from underneath the dead weight of a corpse, and he reached over to curl his hand around the boy’s skinny arm. There was a message to deliver. He had to make sure this was the right person. “Yuro—“

The hood fell away. From it spilled a shock of pale blonde hair, an elfin face so, _so_ devastatingly familiar that Yuuri’s heart caught in his throat.

In his mind’s eye was a car where a boy lay bleeding in the backseat, a dark building where he left a friend to die alone.

“Yurochka,” Yuuri choked out, though he needed no further confirmation. This was their target. He remembered well that same face slowly bleaching white in the rearview mirror, wondering if this was another casualty to add to his ever-growing list. The boy had survived, evidently, was here to haunt Yuuri like a specter of his mistakes. “Kolya…”

“How do you know that name?” The boy, Plisetsky, their rabbit seized him by the shoulders, no longer trying to escape. He looked scared, so very _fifteen_. “How _the fuck_ do you know that name?”

Static buzzed in his ear, insistent and loud, he wasn’t sure for how long. _“Yuuri, give me your status. Can you answer? What’s going on?”_

“Viktor,” Yuuri said, in response to both questions. “He sent me to find you. I—“ A glint of steel winked at him from around the corridor bend. He fired in that direction automatically, hitting nothing but a bare stretch of wall as wispy brown hair folded back into its hiding place. His hand tightened into a vise around Plisetsky’s arm. “We have to go. It isn’t safe here.”

Plisetsky tried to wrench himself away, a note of panic spiking in his voice. “I’m not going anywhere with you! Сука! _Let go!_ ”

Yuuri dug his fingers into Plisetsky’s wrist, so hard he almost felt the bone shift beneath the skin. “You’re leaving here,” he said carefully to the teen, with his gun still trained on the end of the hallway, “on your feet willingly, or on my shoulder like a piece of luggage. Choose. Now.”

The pause couldn’t have lasted more than a single breath, yet it felt like a lifetime when Plisetsky finally answered. “But—what about—? We can’t leave Beka here!”

He looked down to where Altin still sat stunned and winded on the floor. Viktor would probably prefer to leave him behind, but they _were_ surrounded in enemy territory and needed all the help they could get. Making a snap decision, Yuuri kicked the fallen gun over to the _byk_. “He can follow,” he said to Plisetsky, already dragging the teen in the direction of the stairwell. Then, back to Altin, “Cover us.” As he spoke, the crack of a gunshot sounded out from the end of the hall, forcing Yuuri to shove Plisetsky beneath the shelter of his arm, firing another bullet at the wall.

_Twelve left, one magazine to reload._

They rushed down just as two more guards came barreling up the steps to join the fight. Altin made quick work of them with a few shots to the chest, sending their bodies sprawling into one another. Yuuri leapt over the tangle of limbs, making his way to the exit, a stumbling Plisetsky in tow, the _byk_ shooting at someone standing in the stairwell. It took two bullets for the lock to give ( _ten left, one magazine_ ), before he was able to kick out into the cool winter night.

Thankfully, there were no additional guards beyond the door, but they could little afford to linger now that their cover was blown. Yuuri dragged them through the alley and into the street. Altin ran behind the two of them, all of their steps almost on top of one another as they sank into the thick of people lining up to get inside.

Another shot fired. Someone screamed, high and grating, setting off a wave of panic that rippled into hysteria.

In his ear, _“Yuuri!”_

“I’ve got the rabbit,” he said into the speaker, unsure if Viktor could hear. It took only a quick glance back to see that they were being pursued, a number of guards dressed in black weaving conspicuously through the flashy club-goers. Between him and Altin both, there weren’t enough bullets in their guns to take them all out, even if they managed to kill one-for-one. “Stay away—I’ve got it. I’ve got him.” He wasn’t sure that was true, exactly, racking his brain for a plan.

Direct confrontation would lead only to death. The car, if Mila hadn’t taken it already, was parked in the opposite direction.

What they needed was a place to hide: somewhere safe, and discreet, with a lot of people passing through.

The thought struck him suddenly of the perfect place to go, and he veered sharply into an alley heading east. It was a tight squeeze for the three of them with how fast they were going, the narrow passage creating a bottleneck that both limited their pursuers and acted as a direct line of fire. Plisetsky panted in exhaustion beneath his arm, just as Altin shot the last of his rounds into the incoming guards, his gun clicking uselessly empty. “Lose it,” Yuuri said, leading them both out into another street.

They were close enough to see it, almost taste it: the syrupy glow of the Golden Gai. The entrance into the network of the six alleys was bursting with people, all chattering with excitement as they wove in and out of the many bars precariously crammed into the small space. Already Yuuri was mapping out their path, his eyes wandering from side to side. Each step opened up new possibilities as steep stairways were revealed, cracks big enough for a body to slip through unnoticed, a dim overhang to crouch beneath and blend.§

He held Plisetsky’s wrist even tighter and told Altin to grab the other. “Don’t let go,” he warned them both, slowing for the briefest moment when they finally entered the block, enough for Yuuri to look behind and count how many guards were still on their tail.

Too many.

Yuuri turned them left, then right, into izakaya after izakaya, never more than a few seconds at a time. Their pace was meandering, a wandering kind of step that was as casual as he could keep it without drawing attention to themselves. His gun was tucked into his waistband, and he could feel the hard ridge of it beneath his billowing shirt. It poked against his hip, ready to be drawn in a moment, should they be trapped, though he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Shooting in such a dense area was dangerous—too many witnesses, too hard to move. People here were territorial, and would likely drive him into a dead end and keep him there until the police showed up.

Plisetsky’s hand was sweating into his. Altin was quiet and pale, shadowing their steps, his hand clenching around the air where the gun had been.

They slid through Kenzo’s and its leopard-print covered walls. Past the rich businessmen in Albatross. Dipped into the loud karaoke event at Champion, before backtracking, spying two guards searching for them in the crowd building up by the microphone. Yuuri could feel his heart wearing a groove into his ribcage, the beat of it growing louder the deeper they plunged into the alleys. The steps down from Blue Square led them into a crease between the buildings, where a staff entrance was propped open, and through it a worker’s _hanten_ that Yuuri quickly swiped before he was seen. He wrapped Plisetsky in it, drawing his hair up into the rag he nabbed from a bar to hide his pale hair from view.

_Almost, almost, just a little bit more._

The exit was steps away. They’d be out of the alley soon, no guards at their back. Then it was just a matter of waiting somewhere safe until Viktor came for him.

A hand reached out for him, twisting in the collar of his shirt to pull him close. Yuuri gasped, choking against the fist at his throat, letting go of Plisetsky in order to pry himself loose from the hold. “There you are,” the guard said, pulling Yuuri onto his toes to avoid his flailing legs. “Stop—“ Yuuri took out his gun, fingers too clumsy to switch off the safety, and struck the man beneath the jaw with the butt, so hard his teeth probably chipped. There was a sharp _riiiiippp_ as Yuuri’s shirt tore. He fell to the ground in a heap, gun still clenched tight in his hand, his extra magazine clattering out of reach beneath a stall. “ _You fucking_ —“

He took the shot.

_Nine bullets left, no reloads_.

Blood splattered on his face, hot and wet and stinking. People screamed, running away from the scene in a surge of movement. Except one—someone was headed towards them at breakneck speed. Yuuri turned, lifting his arm, firing at the blur.

The bullets missed. _Six left._ De la Iglesia rolled beneath them in one motion, bouncing back to his feet in a cat-like leap as he stalked closer. He had a gun in his hand, trained on Yuuri’s face, and was about to shoot when the piercing cry of fast approaching police sirens distracted him.

Yuuri didn’t miss his chance. He grabbed Plisetsky, pulling himself up and through the crowd fleeing mass exodus from the Golden Gai. Wiping at his face was useless; it only served to smear the blood around more in the crease of his elbow, and he decided that it could wait until they were safe. Street after street, their pace was relentless—he barely looked back to see if Altin was still there, merely dragging around the teen like cargo.

At last they turned into a long street lined end to end with love hotels, their gaudy signs flashing in bright neon pinks and blues, denoting vacancies and prices. The building they chose had an automated screen—no receptionist to see them pick a room, or pay with the credit card Yuuri had stolen from the blonde at the bar. His hands refused to stop shaking until the keycard slid into the lock and the door swung open into the safety of an empty room. “Sit.” This he directed at the two standing awkwardly behind him, gesturing at the bed with the barrel of his gun. His resolve was on the verge of collapsing in on itself, his nerves beginning to finally fray now that the pressure was off, and he hoped it didn’t show in his voice. _They were safe, no one followed them, no one had seen them come in._ Plisetsky looked ready to protest, but Altin quickly silenced him with a hand to his shoulder. “Viktor, we need a pick up.”

He rattled off the address, and all they had to do was wait

Then, _then—_ the words he’d been waiting to hear. Not through the static whine of the speaker, but rather the door: _“Yuuri, we’re here.”_

Everything was still when Yuuri kicked the keycard beneath the door, watching through the thin crack as someone picked it up. The three of them waited, backed up against the furthest wall, until they heard the distinctive _click_ of the lock unfastening, the knob turning with deliberate slowness.

Yuuri had never been so relieved to see Viktor, who entered the room with his free hand raised in surrender and his silver hair tousled messily as if he sprinted up six flights to get there. Their eyes locked, and in three long strides Viktor was across the floor. He reached out to cup Yuuri’s face between the wide expanse of his gloved hands, turning it from side to side. His thumb swiped across Yuuri’s cheek and came away bloody. “Where are you injured?”

Dazed, Yuuri shook his head. “I’m fine. I—“ His gaze darted to the side, where Plisetsky and Altin stood watching them both. “They’re here. I got them out.”

“You did,” Viktor acknowledged, holding on for just a beat longer than he should have before finally letting go. He stepped away, then rounded on the other two with a fluid turn, his hand already fishing in his jacket for his gun. “As for _you_.” This was aimed at Altin, who was frozen in place, his face set into an impassive mask though the undercurrent of fear in his dark eyes betrayed him.

Viktor clicked off the safety, seemingly ready to shoot, when Plisetsky suddenly surged forward.

With a startlingly agile leap, he knocked into Yuuri, wrenching the gun out of the older man’s grasp and aiming it at Viktor. “You’re not killing him,” the teenager snarled angrily, his hands unsteady. But there was no way he could miss from such a short distance.

The moment dangled on a breath, fragile as glass. Viktor aimed at Altin, Plisetsky aimed at Viktor, the two of them without weapons not daring to move in case they startled either one into shooting.

“Drop the gun, Yura,” Viktor said so calmly it was almost as if he were speaking to a child, rather than someone almost-grown with a gun pointed in his direction.

Plisetsky’s arm trembled in what might have been hesitation, but was probably anger. “You’re _not killing him,_ ” he repeated, each word harder than the last. The gun swung towards Yuuri’s face. “If you get to keep _him_ , then I’m keeping Beka.” His hostility was startling, and Yuuri’s heart was hammering in his chest as he tried to convince himself it was nothing.

_There was no way he remembered, he didn’t even see my face that night, he was out of it, but what if, what if…_

“My Yuuri is an asset. He”—gesturing at Altin with his chin—“is someone who can’t be trusted with _keeping you safe_.”

“So you have a япошка pet. Beka is one of _my_ men. He’s under my protection.”

“This isn’t up for debate,” Viktor said, composure gone as his voice deepened with the challenge, accent thicker, as if he were one moment from snarling. “You are going back to Russia. _Alone._ ”

“Wait!” Yuuri stepped forward, flinching slightly when all eyes focused on him, acutely aware of his very own gun directed at him. “That’s not a good idea,” he said, throat parched. “He won’t be any safer there.”

“And why not?” Viktor asked. His arms were still tense, aimed precisely at the _byk_ , though he was now looking at Yuuri.

“You have a leak.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence and death; mentions of child abuse and prostitution; use of derogatory slurs; guns.
> 
>    
> [1] A “rabbit” is a codeword used by spies about the target in a surveillance operation.
> 
> [2] япошка/япошки, or “Yaposhka” (sing.)/“Yaposhki” (pl.), is a derogatory slur for Japanese people in Russia. 
> 
> [3] A cleaner is a person who comes to physically erase evidence of a crime after the fact.
> 
> †During Shintaro Ishihara’s term as Governor of Tokyo (1999-2012), there was a massive push to clean up the streets of the city in a bid to host the next Olympics. His policies led to police raids on businesses in Kabukichō, especially on those affiliated with the Yakuza. 
> 
> §Shinjuku Golden Gai (新宿ゴールデン街) is a small area of Shinjuku, Tokyo east of Kabukichō. It is famous both as an area of architectural interest and for its nightlife. It is composed of a network of six narrow alleys alleys which are just about wide enough for a single person to pass through. Over 200 tiny shanty-style bars, clubs and eateries are squeezed into this area. In this area, shooting photograph and video on the street is prohibited. All the bars I’ve mentioned in this section are real places in the Golden Gai! 
> 
> **  
> Thank you to everyone who has created things for my fic so far! Please keep tagging me in them, they are honestly the best parts of my day!!!
> 
> Shout out to [jaellisme](https://jaellisme.tumblr.com/) for making this [beautiful drawing](https://jaellisme.tumblr.com/post/162215672498/there-was-a-picture-of-him-in-the-first-dossier) of beautiful young Vitya mentioned in chapter 2!
> 
> **
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ What can I even say? Do apologies mean anything anymore? This took me a months lmao because I was really busy with work. JUST KNOW that I was actually really working on it all this time.
> 
> Enjoy and thank you for your continued support! Your kudos, bookmarks, etc. mean everything to me. I love all your comments and I read them often, because you all are so nice and inspire me to write. Find me at my YOI blog [witchsbane](https://witchsbane.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat/ask me questions/etc.!


	15. Simmer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simmer
> 
> 1\. The temperature just below boiling point  
> 2\. To be in a state of subdued or restrained activity, development, excitement, anger, etc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at the end of chapter.

“What do you mean?”

No one dared move. Yuuri kept his sights fixed on the two guns—both locked and loaded, ready to be fired with the barest twitch of someone’s nervous finger. None of which were his, unfortunately. He racked his brain for anything that would help diffuse the situation as quickly and bloodlessly as possible, but knew just as well that this was not his fight. The last thing he wanted to do tonight was stand between Viktor and Plisetsky when they were at each other’s throat.

But still—there were more pressing issues to attend to, and Yuuri did not want to risk the chances of them shooting in such close quarters and being caught up in the collateral damage.

A siren wailed outside, just as he made to respond. The four of them froze on the spot, waiting in bated breath as its pitch climbed higher and higher, pressing in distressingly close from beyond the thin windowpane. No one so much as twitched in those scant few seconds, and only when the sirens faded into the distance did they finally allow themselves to move.

“Not here,” Yuuri eventually said, cutting through the argument before it had time to resurge. He stared hard until both guns were lowered off their intended targets. “This isn’t the time or place to do this. We can’t be here for much longer.” Already they’d been in the room almost a full hour. Soon, the cleaning crew would arrive to tidy up for the next customers and staying put was not an option. The police were likely to search that district first, when they inevitably found the Golden Gai deserted—no cameras, no crowds, the perfect place to disappear from prying eyes. It was precisely the reason why Yuuri had chosen to hide there, but he wasn’t willing to bet his life on the flimsy privacy offered by a love hotel.

“Georgi’s waiting for us in the car,” Viktor agreed with a small nod. Then, barely sparing a glance at Altin, said, “I’ll deal with _you_ later.”

It was the wrong thing to say, unless Viktor was aiming to wind Plisetsky up further. The boy’s hand tightened worryingly over the handle of the gun, though he kept his finger off the trigger and the barrel pointed to the floor. Yuuri felt his palm itch with the desire to reach across the space between them and snatch it back. Instead he made to move towards the door, only to be jerked back suddenly by a hard tug at his elbow.

“What—“ Yuuri turned in surprise, recoiling when Viktor laid a hand against his cheek. The touch was soft, so light it was barely there, and when it came away the leather glove was stained with blood. “ _Oh._ ” He’d forgotten about it almost entirely, letting it dry into flakes on his skin and in his hair. A patch of red bloomed Rorschach-like upon his collar.

“You can’t leave looking like that,” Viktor said, and with his free hand lifted the hem of the ruined shirt to wipe away the excess blood. He shrugged out of his own coat and threw it across Yuuri’s shoulders, fastening the buttons in front to conceal the mess. When he was done, Viktor stepped back a fraction, inspecting his work through lowered lashes before finally deeming it acceptable. “Better,” he said, fingers sliding down to encircle Yuuri’s wrist, where the pulse nearly beat out of his skin. “Let’s go.”

They fairly flew out the door, towards a staff entrance that Yuuri had overlooked when they first arrived. While Viktor led them expertly through the corridor, down the steep six flights from whence he came, Yuuri was listening—waiting for the sounds of errant footsteps pursuing them in the stairwell, for the shriek of sirens and loudspeakers signaling for them to _come out with your hands up_. It never came.

Georgi was waiting for them as promised, idling in a white sedan by the mouth of the alley. Viktor slid into the passenger seat, the rest of them piling wordlessly into the back. Yuuri was pressed close enough to feel the tension radiating out of Plisetsky’s thin body—even if he hadn’t first noticed the nervous jerk of his leg bouncing in the footwell, the trembling gun held fast between his knobby knees. A pop song played innocuously on the radio, its cheery beat weighing like lead as the car turned a corner, merging into traffic on the main road, sailing past a police cruiser headed in the opposite direction. Every once in a while, Georgi’s eyes would flicker to Plisetsky through the rearview mirror before seeking out his own for the briefest moment, looking as if he wanted to say something but could not.

Yuuri scarcely breathed until they were clear out of Kabukichō.

A familiar black car was already parked next to theirs when they made it back to the garage, evidence that Mila had arrived safely. Sure enough, she was waiting for them inside, wrapping Plisetsky up in her arms the moment he walked in through the door, squeezing him tighter even as she scolded him fiercely.

“What were you thinking?” she began, pulling back an inch to take in Plisetsky fully. Her voice was firm and concerned by turns, so much an older sister in tone that it sent a sharp pang through Yuuri. “You could have gotten yourself killed, or worse! Do you know how worried everyone was? How upset your де́душка is? You were incredibly lucky—“

“Fuck off!” Plisetsky wrenched himself away, a little shamefaced. He stalked to the end of the room, like a cornered animal readying itself for a fight, and he looked in askance at Altin. But when said man moved as if to join him, the _byk_ was stopped by Georgi clamping a hard hand down on his shoulder. So, instead, Plisetsky continued to rage. “I’ll be dead of old age before either of them decide I’m ready. I deserve to be here as much as all of you,” he said, though his eyes clearly meant: _more than any of you_. His glare dared anyone to say otherwise; it was angry and brazen and full of the naïveté of youths who believed themselves invincible. Or perhaps just immune to the specter of death, special. Yuuri wasn’t exactly sure, had been too well acquainted in his childhood with death to develop that requisite streak of rebellion that lit a fire in Plisetsky. “You _promised_ me. You said you wouldn’t leave me behind again.”

“So you take off like some runaway? Acting like such an ingrate, even after Yakov took you in, after everything he’s done for you since.” Viktor’s expression was a cool, placid mask, revealing nothing. “You are _Bratva_ , not some common street thug. It’s about time you start acting like it instead of mouthing off. This isn’t a game, and you’re going to get yourself killed if you don’t learn how to listen.”

“As if you’ve ever listened in your life,” Plisetsky spat. “What good is listening if you never let me do anything about it?”

The ensuing silence was heavy enough to sink a body, a continuation of the tense stare off between Viktor and Plisetsky. Only this time—in that spare living room, in a beaten down building where no one would bat an eyelash at the sounds of a fight—more people would get caught in the crossfire. Yuuri saw Phichit out of the corner of his eye, hidden partially by the ingress to the kitchen, and at once inched closer to his friend. A painful awareness settled over his bones as he mulled over the gun in Plisetsky’s hand, and then his own empty one. What would it take to knock the boy to the ground? How close could Yuuri get before anyone noticed?

Thankfully, Yuuri did not have to find out. In the next moment Viktor was holding up the flat of his hand, a signal to hold. “Enough,” he said, and as he did, Mila and Georgi followed suit. “You’re right. Listening to my orders means nothing if you don’t understand why I have to give them. I’m letting you stay”—here, Viktor pinned Altin down with a look that had the _byk_ turning white, though, to his credit, the man did not falter—“if you get rid of your dead weight.”

But Plisetsky did, to the point where he nearly dropped the gun before finding the wherewithal to aim it. “ _No_ ,” he snarled, “you fucking bastard. Let him go, Georgi.”

“He can’t be trusted,” Viktor said evenly, unaffected even as the barrel of the gun swung in his direction. His eyes were steady on Plisetsky. “He disobeyed a direct order from the Papa. According to our laws, the only fitting punishment is death.”

“Because he’s on my side! Beka is _mine_ — _my_ guard, _my_ friend. I’m not going to let you hurt him when he’s under my protection.”

“And you think this means you’re _ready_?” Viktor’s laugh was hollow. In one swift motion he had his own pistol out, thumb clicking the hammer into place, the sound so loud it was almost a gunshot in itself. “What if I told you that this is your initiation? That killing the _byk_ is your first official job for the Family? What then?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

"You have to be prepared," Viktor continued, "for every possibility. When you're part of the _Bratva_ it's for life—it _is_ your life. When the Papa tells you to jump then you jump, and when he tells you to kill then you kill. Even your friends, even your lovers." He dug the barrel of his gun into Altin's temple, hard enough a bloodless white ring when he lifted it off. "What are you willing to give up to become one of us?”

Although not meant for him, Yuuri felt the question sink home into the pit of his stomach. There it turned over and over again, like a stone polished smooth at the bottom of a riverbed, slipping out of the present moment and instead into another well-worn memory.

_What are you willing to give up for them?_ It was no longer Viktor speaking, standing there in his mind’s eye, but the _kumicho_. On the same night that the man had pressed a small glass pill into Yuuri’s shaking hands, whispered a name and an order into the shell of his ear. Until then Yuuri had only ever been used as bait or as cover or as a means of escape; never before had he been told to pull the trigger—the target, this time, some low level dealer whose fatal mistake was to make one too many promises than he could keep. The details of that first job had long since softened for Yuuri, leaving nothing but the blur of a face and a bullet in his memories, as well as an abiding terror lodged inside of him like shrapnel, bloody and deep. _Do your best, boy, or don’t bother coming back._

An intense wave of pity overcame him. Yuuri had been there too, so young and with everything to prove. Had Plisetsky ever killed someone before, or was this his first? Being asked to shoot his friend just to prove how far he’d go seemed cruel. And yet it was something Yuuri would have done already, he was certain, if he were in the same position.

What did that make him?

The pity turned tide, swelling into a sickness that almost rose up and out of his throat in a shout of: _No, don’t!_

_What are you willing to give up?_

The answer, of course, was _everything—everything._

“Why don’t we all just calm down a little?” All eyes turned towards Phichit, who stepped away from the safety of the ingress and fully into the room. His hands were up in mock surrender, a disarming smile flitted onto his face. To everyone else he seemed perfectly at ease, even careless, except to Yuuri, who spied the telltale jerk of a knee that said otherwise, preparing itself to bolt. “How about we lower the guns and take a few deep breaths, alright? No one has to get hurt right now.”

To Plisetsky, however, Phichit was just another unknown entity and a convenient target for his rage. “Who the fuck are you?” the boy asked as he pointed the gun, more for punctuation than malice. But even so, Yuuri felt his hackles rise at the sight.

In an instant he was between the two of them, a hard, “ _Don’t_ ,” snapped out through his gnashing teeth. The hostile expression on Plisetsky’s face faltered when their eyes met, vanishing entirely under Yuuri’s unwavering stare, which continued to wear him down and down and _down_ until the barrel of the gun was to the floor once again.

Plisetsky bared his own teeth in answer, though the effect was dampened by the way he stepped back almost unconsciously. His gaze flickered to Viktor standing on the other side of the room. “Tell your guard dog to stand down,” he said. Then to Yuuri, “Mind your own fucking business.”

“You were threatening his friend,” Viktor said lightly, “after he went through all the trouble of tracking you down for us and bringing you back. That makes it his business. If anything, you should be more grateful that you’re not dead at the bottom of Tokyo Bay right now.”

“We had it handled.”

“But you didn’t.” It was the absolute certainty of Viktor’s tone that cut into Plisetsky, deeper and quicker than anything said thus far. “This is what I meant when I said you aren’t ready—you don’t _think_ before you act, you don’t _listen_. You seem to be under the impression that you’re special just because you have a few convenient tricks up your sleeve. But being part of the Bratva is no game, and you are far more mediocre than you think.”

Plisetsky reeled back as if struck. Even Mila and Georgi, who stood at Viktor’s side, were taken aback at the vehemence of his words. “You can’t talk to me like that! I—“

“You’re untested and untried,” Viktor cut off the feeble protest. “Were you even thinking of your grandfather when you took off? All you left him was a _note_ ”—the boy flinched, curled into himself with shame—“like some afterthought. To tell him that, what, you were busy trying to get yourself killed in a country you don’t know the first thing about? That you were willing to drag your _friend_ into a suicide mission just to prove me wrong? That’s not the way you treat family.”

“What would _you_ know about family? You don’t even have any!”

“Yura!” Mila gasped. “Хва́тит! You took it too far!”

Phichit interrupted before they could snipe at each other further. “Hey!” he said, walking closer, a little more confident now that he was clinging to the back of Yuuri’s shirt for strength. “I said calm down—both of you. No one’s shooting anyone here. My house, my rules.”

A beat passed, hanging in the air for so long that Yuuri thought someone might raise an objection. But at last the room seemed to sigh out in relief, the tension not so much breaking as deflating now that Phichit had drawn his lines. That was something they would respect, if nothing else.

“I don’t have to listen to some nobody like you,” Plisetsky muttered without much heat. He withdrew into himself as the blow to his pride smarted, like a cat licking its wounds. “I don’t even know you…”

Phichit twisted a fist into his shirt, fingers knocking hard against Yuuri’s spine. “I’m not usually a fan of the face-to-face thing,” he hedged, hesitating for the briefest moment, “but you probably know me better as _Phi_.”

Someone coughed and it echoed like a gunshot in the ensuing silence. Then, incredulously, Plisetsky asked, “ _You_ sold me out? For _him_?” He sneered at Yuuri with his teeth bared in threat.

“I’m on his side before yours,” Phichit explained, “or anyone else’s.”

Just as Plisetsky geared up to say something else, Viktor cut in. “That’s enough,” he repeated. “I’ve let this go on for too long.” His hand flicked up, fingers tightened; Yuuri steeled himself, waiting for the bang of a bullet, the thump of a body meeting the floor.

But it didn’t come. Instead of pulling the trigger as Yuuri though he might, Viktor disengaged the gun. The hammer slid back into place, depressing, its _shhk_ sounding like the shuddering breath that tore through Altin. It seemed that he would live another day.

“Here’s your first lesson,” Viktor said. Plisetsky turned two shades paler in the span of those uncertain seconds, gun half-raised in response but already too late. “You want him as your _bratok_? Your _avtoritet_ , even? Fine. But remember that you have a responsibility to him from now on, too.” As he spoke, Viktor closed the gap between them, fairly towering over Plisetsky. He plucked the gun from the boy’s loosened grasp as if it were nothing more than air. “The next time you pull a stunt like this, it might be his blood on your hands.”

Plisetsky lost all the strength holding him upright, so that he fell backwards onto the couch and sat there sullen and stunned. With a final nod from Viktor the rest of the room followed suit—even Phichit, who squeezed himself unobtrusively into a battered seat he’d dragged out from the kitchen. Viktor held court in the armchair as if it were a throne. His eyebrow was raised imperiously, his legs crossed with hands folded neatly in his lap. His thumb rubbed small circles on his knee, into the shadow where the joint bent and the bone dipped, expectant.

_Speak,_ his look seemed to say. _Come here,_ his fingers beckoned all the while.

Though it was a difficult image to ignore, Yuuri still tried, widening the distance between them with a few measured steps away. It achieved nothing, truly, and only made him more aware of how little effort it would take to vanish that space—one, two, three strides at the most—and be welcomed into the cradle of Viktor’s lap.

When it became clear that Yuuri would say nothing first, Viktor finally did. “Yuuri,” he said, voice smooth and solicitous, with not a hint of the tension just moments before. “Tell me exactly what you heard.”

“It wasn’t much,” Yuuri answered a little nervously as the spotlight fell on him. There was no hiding from all those eyes, no bravado he could summon up. It was only when Yuuri wrapped his arms around himself that he remembered Viktor’s coat, which was still draped around his shoulders, clearly a size too big. “Nothing you didn’t suspect already, really. They know you’re in Japan but not why, they have a mole in your inner circle but not who. The Ji family is definitely involved now, and maybe the de la Iglesias too. But whoever is feeding them information seems to be working on something else right now…” Yuuri trailed off. _A distraction,_ the _Geondal_ had said of Viktor, _nothing more than a distraction._ The thought chafed in the back of his mind, something he couldn’t quite reach with the current limits of his knowledge.

“Is that all you have?” Plisetsky huffed. “That doesn’t help us much.”

Mila shushed him, smothering his complaints with her palm. She urged Yuuri to continue. “And…?”

“They’re sending a cleaner after Park Min-so,” Yuuri said finally, biting the inside of his cheek, recalling the pill Ji had pinched between his fingers. _Good deaths are reserved only for good men._ “I don’t know when, but soon. And they don’t care whether he takes her dead or alive.”

 

* * *

 

Despite the urgency of the situation impressed upon him, Takeda did not give them the all clear for a meeting until almost two days later. It was difficult to justify why a maximum security prisoner needed to be moved from her protective cell, or why she was suddenly taken off twenty-four hour surveillance—as Takeda explained—and even more so to find guards who could be persuaded to look the other way when it happened. But at least money was something for which Viktor did not lack, and he applied it with a heavy hand until the problem of their reluctance gave way under the weight of new zeroes in their bank accounts.

Still, Viktor was not pleased to be kept waiting on a man like Takeda, who claimed he could move no faster. _“I need to keep my record as clean as possible,”_ the Director General said over the phone. _“It wouldn’t be good if someone were to snoop around my business and find anything…unsavory about my connections. The support of the public is imperative and I can’t afford any scandals. You know how these things go, Mr. Nikiforov,”_ he continued, as though it were he and not Viktor who had come up with the plan. In the end, Takeda foisted the task onto one of his many lackeys before hanging up without so much as a goodbye. 

Yuuri wasn’t sure what made Viktor angrier about that call: the dismissal, the condescension, or the arrogance Takeda possessed in believing he was the most important cog in the machine. Likely it was all three, and it had Viktor seething even as Georgi drove the three of them to the Tobata police station at well past midnight. †

To distract him, Yuuri brought up the subject of Park Min-so and the question he wanted answered for the better part of two days. “What is this really about?” Yuuri asked, shivering as blue eyes pinned him into place. “Why do you need to see her so badly _now_? It would be safer to leave her alone. Takeda already has men on her around the clock, and it seems risky to go in there ourselves…”

That pulled a laugh from Viktor. “That didn’t stop us,” he pointed out, then caught Yuuri by the chin. “Weren’t you the one who told me not to trust anyone who worked purely for the money? Those cops would have given her up, sooner or later, and I much prefer to get at her first. Especially if she knows something worth dying for.”

Though keenly aware of Georgi’s gaze in the rearview mirror, Yuuri could not pull away. “So you’re not worried at all about de la Iglesia? He’s good—really good.”

“Better than you?”

It was a challenge, Yuuri knew, and still he took the bait. “No,” he said between clenched teeth, and could not resist casting out his own. “I just think you’re taking this a little too lightly. Especially with Takeda acting like he’s too good even for _your_ money.”

“And what about you, Yuuri—are _you_ too good for my money?” Viktor asked. Just like that, Yuuri knew he made a mistake. The hand on his chin tightened to an almost painful degree before loosening enough for Yuuri to break away, pressing himself back into the car window. “Takeda is a nuisance, yes, but a useful one. And so long as he continues to be, I couldn’t care less what he thinks of me.” A frown tugged sharply at Viktor’s mouth then, as he contemplated how much to reveal. “As for why I need to see her…I may have an idea about why Lee wants her dead so badly. Georgi’s been looking into something for me since the party. Park has something to do with those guns from the Chinese—I know it, I just don’t know how yet. But I’m going to find out tonight.”

Actually—that wasn’t too far off from what Yuuri had already concluded himself. Yet his doubts lingered. “What makes you so sure she’ll even talk to you?”

Viktor’s answering smile was like a sliver of moon cut out from the winter night, cool and thin and distant. “Do you want to know a secret, Yuuri?” he asked. A shiver of unease passed through Yuuri, and he was almost tempted to say no. “There are only two types of people in this world: the ones desperate to live, and the ones willing to die. Park made it this long because she’s of the first kind, and when she finds out that her boss—her precious _Lee sajang-nim_ —has turned his back on her too…” Viktor stared out the window as he spoke, his voice suddenly quiet. In the reflection Yuuri saw his mouth flatten into a thin line. “Like the rest of us, Park will want to choose the winning side, or at least the one where she comes out of this alive. If she’s as smart as I think she is, then she’ll know that side is mine.”

Even if Yuuri could have found the right words to respond, the moment to say them passed when the car finally rolled to a stop near the Tobata police station. On the curb, Viktor and Georgi pulled their coat collars up to their ears to shield their faces from plain sight. Yuuri followed suit just a step behind, the air in his lungs stalled as the three of them approached the building. But Georgi led them without hesitation, walking brazenly inside, past the waiting room and holding cells and the inner sanctum of desks where officers shuffled papers while murmuring quietly amongst themselves. At any moment, Yuuri was sure somebody would stop them, calling out a, _“Hey, you!”_ before summoning the rest of the force to then take them down. But he needn’t have worried.

In fact, as Yuuri was beginning to notice, no one was even looking at them. The officers all had their heads dutifully bowed, as if it were an every day occurrence to see three civilians—two of them not even Japanese—strolling casually inside the building. It seemed that the entire police outfit, or at least its night shift, was under Viktor’s payroll.

Not for the first time, Yuuri wondered at the terrifying lengths Viktor would go to for this cause.

Park Min-so was already waiting for them inside the interrogation cell, and it looked like she’d been there for quite some time. She was seated at a steel table, chained by her wrists and ankles attached to a bolt in the floor. The fluorescent lights were not kind to her limp hair and sallow skin, shining down on her prominent cheekbones so that it gave her thin face a haunted look. Her head had been lowered until the moment the three of them stepped into the room, at which point she deliberately raised and turned away, their very presence an offense. She would have ignored them altogether had it not been for Georgi’s hand on her shoulder, forcing her to face forward.

Unbothered, Viktor took the seat in front of her. “Park Min-so,” he greeted. “How are you?”

She swore in Korean, and then, for good measure, in English. “Fuck you,” she spat at him, and it landed heavy and wet on Viktor’s lapel.

“If you’ve gotten that out of your system,” Viktor said, “we have a few things to discuss and little time to do it.” He wiped off his coat with a handkerchief procured from his pocket, acting as though it was little more than a slight inconvenience. But Yuuri could tell how irked he was, something tight lurking beneath his expression.

“I have nothing to say to you,  씨발놈 .”

“You will,” he promised. “How are they treating you here, Miss Park? Well, I hope. I’ve been told that Japan’s prison system is one of the best in the world—strict, and lonely, but safe for a woman such as yourself.” Park looked down at her lap in determined silence, fingers clenched over the end of the armrests. “It’s different in Russia. There you have no privacy, no peace. You live a hard life even if you follow the rules. Once you’re in with the general population, the guards don’t care what happens to you—if you don’t find someone to watch your back, you’ll probably be on it.”

Park bared her teeth, saying nothing.

Viktor didn’t need her to. He continued to speak without acknowledging her presence, in a tone like he was talking about the weather or the evening news. “You don’t have to worry about something like that happening here, of course. Tell me, how long has it been since you even last talked to anyone?” When Park flinched, Viktor let out an unsurprised hum. “A few days? Weeks? Have you even been allowed to stretch your legs since you were put in that cell—or did the Direction General not bother with that either?”

From the look on her face, Viktor had struck his mark dead on. It was only now that Yuuri noticed the telltale signs of prolonged isolation on Park’s face: the briefest hint of hysteria creeping into the corners of her red eyes, the restless way her fingers _tap-tap-tapped_ against the armrest. She was beginning to shake from the strain of it, enough to rattle her shackles like a ghost.

Had Viktor done this? Had he planned this far ahead? It was entirely possible to Yuuri, who watched the confrontation with an eerie sense of detachment as he stood guarding the door. If this were a scene from a movie—and he the captive audience—then this was the moment where Park Min-so would show her true colors, either stand her ground or fold beneath the pressure, keep her secrets or spill them all into the enemy’s waiting ear. This was the moment when the scales would tip, one way or another.

Except this wasn’t the movies. In reality, Viktor would need more than a few days of solitary confinement to break someone as strong-willed as Park Min-so. Perhaps it might do for the average person, but even Yuuri had survived far worse conditions under the _kumicho_ ’s ungentle hand-rearing, young as he was at the time.

Park gritted her teeth, wetting her cracked lips as if contemplating the merits of spitting at Viktor again. Though it seemed that she thought better of it, deciding to return her gaze down at the steel tabletop.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Viktor said. “There’s no need for you to suffer needlessly here, when it would be so easy to have you moved somewhere else. Somewhere with a better bed, better food, where you can take walks outside and breathe fresh air. Really, more like an extended vacation than an actual prison.”

“I’d rather die in here than accept any handouts from _you_.”

“If that’s really how you feel,” he said, drawing the last word out into a lengthy pause, “then it shouldn’t matter to you that your _Lee sajang-nim_ just put a price on your head.”

There was a sharp intake of breath, and then: “What are you talking about?”

He pushed the phone towards her. “I wonder, given the circumstances, how your boss feels about _chinilpa_ in his Family?” [1]

The screen cast an eerie blueish tint over Park’s face as she devoured each word. Her eyes were wide with fear, cheeks bleached white and growing paler still with every second that ticked by. Yuuri knew at once what Viktor must have shown her. Articles had begun cropping up throughout the week, one after another like weeds, about the warehouse raids Takeda was leading as part of his initiative to clean up the streets of Japan. Already he’d taken apart two major manufacturers in Kitakyushu, intercepted at least three shipments to the port, and arrested a dozen dealers working out of Fukuoka—all with the help of an _anonymous source_. It wasn’t long before journalists made the connection between Takeda’s informant and the recently publicized arrest of Park Min-so, which every media outlet in Japan and various other news sites abroad had subsequently picked up by the next news cycle. It had gone global in under twenty-four hours, and would have been good investigative reporting if all their information had not been hand-fed to them by Viktor and Mila.

“This isn’t—this is _dirty_. You don’t seriously expect him to believe all this?” But her voice faltered, and, like a barb catching onto bare skin, Viktor tore at her deeper.

“He already does,” Viktor said, leaning across the table to scroll down further on the phone, revealing a new block of text. However, Park was no longer looking at him; instead, her eyes tracked distantly beyond, roaming over the rest of the room until they finally landed on Yuuri. A spark of recognition lit up inside of her, turning shock into blazing hate. Or was it fear into disgust? “He spared no expense in making sure you stayed quiet. Does the name _Leo de la Iglesia_ sound familiar?”

Her gaze snapped back to Viktor. “How do you know that name?”

“How much time do you think you have,” Viktor countered, “now that you’re his next target? A day? Two?” Park trembled, her chains rattling their death knell. “Enough to reconsider my offer?”

“What do you want from me?” she whispered.

“Just a name,” he said in a voice syrupy sweet and familiar, something he’d used on Yuuri before. “Tell me the name of the mole inside Yakov’s inner circle—and I promise, you’ll make it out of this alive.”

For a long time there was no answer. Park stared through Viktor unseeing, as if he were little more than glass, straight into the depths of Yuuri himself. Did she blame him? She must have. Had it not been for him, then she would have made it out that night. By now Park would have been safely ensconced in the protection of the Lee Family in Pyeongchang, life and reputation intact.

But now she was just another traitor, having betrayed her secrets the moment she was captured. At least, that was what she was in the eyes of Lee Seung-gil and the rest of the world, no matter what the truth of the situation really was. There was no way to reclaim all that had been taken from her, no mercy given save for the one Viktor offered now.

In that moment, Viktor must have looked every bit the snake she thought he was and more—biblical in his hold over her, almost, his promises dangling in front of her like the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, red and shining and damned. And so was she, as she must have realized.

Georgi laid a hand on her shoulder, causing Park to flinch hard. “Maybe she just needs more time to consider,” he said, nodding towards the door. “I’ll keep an eye on her while you two get some fresh air.”

A brief, hesitant pause hung in the air. Then, with his mind made up, Viktor stood from his seat and gestured at Yuuri to come with him out of the room. They walked towards the glowing EXIT sign that lit up the dark end of the hallway. When Yuuri chanced a look back, he caught a last glimpse of Park’s pained and sweating face through a crack in the door before it finally slammed shut. 

Outside, the temperature had fallen even further, cold enough to rattle his bones and turn his breath into a chill fog. Viktor fished a slim gold case from out of his breast pocket, and from it retrieved one of the expensive hand-rolled cigarettes lined neatly inside. Yuuri took the one offered in lieu of having to speak, let Viktor light it up as he took the first drag, the motion bringing their faces within inches of each other. If time had stopped then and there, Yuuri would have been able to count each individual eyelash that swept across the other man’s cheek with every slow blink.

He breathed in.

The cigarette was nothing like the kind Mari preferred—the tobacco richer, burning cleaner and smoother than the cheap brand his sister used to buy in cartons from the local konbini. Its fumes curled in a gentle whisper out of his throat, and though he regretted that it tasted nothing of the bitterness of home, Yuuri smoked it down to the filter anyway, ashes and embers falling like dark snow to be crushed beneath his heel.

He breathed out.

Viktor watched him with eyes bright and sharp. A lamp flickered dimly in the doorway where they stood, casting them in-and-out of shadow. For a breathless moment, as Viktor reached for him, Yuuri thought the other man might tenderly cup his face again like he did back in the hotel room. But instead Viktor plucked the smoldering filter from out of his stiff fingers, tossing its remains to the ground before it burned down to his skin.

“Careful,” Viktor said. “Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“I’m always careful,” Yuuri told him, though they both knew it was a lie. More quietly he asked, “Do you really think she’ll consider it?”

“Given those options, wouldn’t you?” The question gave Yuuri pause, innocuous enough on its surface, but in Viktor’s mouth a double-edged thing.

Would he? In truth, Yuuri wasn’t so sure. Viktor was singular in his certainty, always knowing which path to tread and what choice to make, able to so clearly articulate his own desires that everyone else was to him an open book. With Hisashi and Takeda and Park, all Viktor had needed to do was _look_ and at once he uncovered the desperate longings which drove them forward. Though it seemed that Yuuri was an exception to that understanding; which was no surprise, given that Yuuri himself did not know what he wanted. Too many years spent in the _kumicho_ ’s hold had crossed his wires, and he could no longer see the difference between life and death which was so clear to everyone else. His life for his family’s, his death and theirs—all of it linked together, tangled up in a shape that refused to come undone.

He wanted it all. He wanted none of it.

If there were only two kinds of people in the world, then which was he? All too easily would Yuuri lay down his life if it meant keeping his family safe. And yet he was also deeply afraid of dying, crawling back from each failure on bent knee to ask for more. Death was both absolution and damnation, life the very same—just two sides of a game that had never been in his power.

Perhaps there existed a third side for people like him, because neither life nor death ever moved him so much as love. For love, Yuuri would do anything and everything: commit the worst atrocities, burn the world, bring it down. It was the only choice he would never turn his back on, whatever else might come.

Could Viktor ever understand something like that?

The silence stretched on far too thinly between them. Yuuri opened his mouth, determined to speak, when— ** _BAM!_** A shout and a crash rang out from the other side of the door. Suddenly they were both racing into the building, down the narrow corridor, towards the interrogation cell where loud scuffling could be heard.

Viktor was through the door first, but did not step more than a foot inside before he stopped dead in his tracks. He barely swayed when Yuuri crashed full speed into his back.

Yuuri, whose view into the room was blocked, could see nothing and wondered momentarily why the other man was just standing there motionless. Then he noticed it, the iron richness of the air, so distinctive and unnatural a scent that he gagged unexpectedly, nausea and recognition rising in tandem. He shoved past Viktor, sagging against the doorframe, and half-expected a scene like a slaughterhouse from the smell alone.

What he saw was Georgi, bright red blooming on his crisp white shirt, hunched and leaning over a figure lying supine on the floor. What he saw was Park convulsing in his arms, kicking and clawing and trying to scream through the wetness in her throat. Her cheeks bulged and distended with blood, her hands slick as she dug them into his face. The two of them were a tangle of limbs beside the upturned chair. Chains clattered noisily with every violent strike of Park’s fists beating into Georgi, of her head banging into concrete.

The sickening crunch of bone snapped Viktor out of his trance. In a blink he was rushing across the room, hauling Georgi up by the shoulders. He took a moment to assess the _avtoritet_ , gaze clinically searching for injuries before deeming him alright, finally turning his attention to Park Min-so.

But it was already too late. In those scant few seconds she’d gone completely still, the last vestiges of life escaping her body as gurgles out of her bloodied mouth. When her hands fell away from Georgi’s chest, they slapped with finality against concrete. Her head lolled sideways, her eyes wide open but milky with death. Yet, somehow, they still managed to stare straight at Yuuri, accusatory, as if to say: _You did this, this is your fault, you did this to me._

“What did you _do_ , Georgi?”

Said man staggered away from the body, crashing into the table as his legs gave out from underneath him. Angry red trails lined Georgi’s face and neck, though Yuuri could not be sure if the blood was mostly his or Park’s or even both in equal measure. “I-I just,” Georgi stuttered, looking down at his feet when Viktor turned the full force of his ire on him. “I didn’t—I wasn’t—“

“What _happened_?”

“She bit her tongue,” Georgi blurted out. The pitch of his voice climbed higher, colored with shame. He glanced everywhere but at Viktor. “I turned away—only for a minute, less than that—I just looked away, and when I turned back there was already so much blood. She didn’t even _scream_ when she did it. I tried to stop her, but she kept fighting me, and swallowing and swallowing…I couldn’t—“ The lump in his throat bobbed visibly. “She choked…she choked herself on her own tongue.”

Viktor knelt down next to the body as he listened to the stuttering explanation. His gloved hand dipped into the cavity of Park’s mouth, which gave off one last weak sigh, air and blood spilling out from the parted seam. He twisted his fingers inside to check for the tongue, and upon finding nothing swore harshly. “Блядь,” he spat at the corpse, then directly at Georgi himself once he straightened up. “Блядь!”

“I’m sorry,” Georgi groveled, his clear blue eyes shining with tears. “I didn’t think—I had hoped—“ His apology was so sincere that he looked a second away from begging on his hands and knees for forgiveness, while Viktor was ready to let him do just that. “I’ll find a way to fix this, Vitya. I will, on my honor.”

Silence descended over the three of them, punctuated by Georgi’s heaving breaths and continued apologies. Yuuri’s palms were sweating. He wondered what Viktor would do, what kind of punishment he’d mete out for this failure.

“We have to leave through the back,” Viktor said finally, rather than answering Georgi. He took his time cleaning the blood off his gloves, with the same handkerchief he’d used earlier. “They won’t let us walk out of here if they find her like _this_. There are going to be too many questions we can’t answer right now.”

Without glancing back at the bloodied interrogation room, Viktor swept through the doorway and snagged Yuuri on his way out. On the surface, he was the very picture of composure. It was only the tightness of his grip that betrayed any true feelings, hard enough that Yuuri knew there’d be bruises wrapped around his arm later. Having nothing left to do but follow, Yuuri let himself be led to the end of the corridor again. Georgi trailed behind them several paces back, like a dog with its tail between his legs, presence signaled only by the quiet click of a door swinging closed and the light footsteps which followed in their wake.

The tension lasted long after they exited the building and got into the car, showing no signs of abating during the drive back to Fukuoka. It was beginning to emerge as a pattern—the stilted silences, the schemes thwarted or disrupted at the very last moment. Tonight was just the latest blow in a plan that was fast unravelling, though from what thread remained to be seen.

Who was the mole? What was their angle? Why had Park Min-so killed herself?

That final question weighed like lead in his chest. The reason was clear enough on the surface: death before betrayal, loyalty above all else. For someone as evidently principled as Park was, there seemed no other choice in the face of what Viktor had told her. And yet…

Viktor hadn’t been wrong in his estimation of Park. The look in her eyes was not resignation—rather, before it faded into glassy lifelessness, her expression could almost be called desperate. Park wanted _something_ , and Yuuri was tempted to say that she wanted to _live_. Except, how could that be true when she’d bitten her own tongue off to escape the only way she knew how?

Even the tight grip of money and power held no dominion over death.

What was she hiding that was so important? What was she protecting? The mole’s identity could not have been more valuable to Park than her own life. And she nearly wept to learn that Lee Seung-gil had called for her death rather than rescue; Yuuri could not imagine her devotion to him remaining so steadfast after hearing _that_. People were ultimately selfish and self-preserving, after all. And besides which, Seung-gil was still someone entirely out of Viktor’s reach to touch or threaten.

Then it dawned on Yuuri: _who_. It was not a question of _what_ , but of _who_. If not herself, and not Lee Seung-gil, then who was Park trying to protect?

 

 

While they were gone, the rest of the group had abandoned Phichit’s apartment in Tokyo in favor of the Russian mainstay in Nishijin. The lights were off when they pulled up next to the safe house, every window pitch black like the other buildings lining the street. A shifting curtain at the front of the house was the sole sign that someone was awake and waiting for them to return.

“How’d it go?” Mila asked as soon as they crossed the threshold and shut do the door. Without a word of greeting, Viktor and Georgi parted ways: the former heading upstairs with his cellphone in hand, the latter hanging his head and making for the kitchen. She looked at Yuuri, who remained rooted in front of the door. “That bad?”

The rest of the group was waiting too, sitting tersely in the dark, on the overstuffed couches of the living room as they must have been doing all night.

Phichit only had to take one look at his face to understand immediately what happened. “Who died?”

“Park,” Yuuri said, twisting his fingers into his coat. “She, um, she killed herself.”

The room stood at attention. “What?” Mila exclaimed. “ _How_? What happened?”

“She bit through her tongue,” Yuuri explained, voice hushed so that neither Viktor nor Georgi heard him talking about it. Not that it was much of a secret. By now the police would have found Park lying dead in the interrogation cell, discovered them long gone from the scene of the crime. She was too prolific an arrest for the death to remain under the radar, and if not now, then everyone else would hear about the incident when they next checked the news. “Georgi was supposed to be watching her, but…” His words trailed off, eyes darting up to the staircase where Viktor had vanished. “I’m not sure what happens next.”

“Is he—?” Yuuri couldn’t help but ask.

“I really don’t know. Someone should go check on him,” Mila said pointedly. “I’m going to see how Georgi’s holding up. Everyone else should get some rest. We can talk about all _this_ ”—she waved her hand in the air—“in the morning.” And with that she departed for the kitchen, but not before tossing a meaningful look at Yuuri over her shoulder.

Plisetsky and his guard disappeared into another part of the house, sensing that the conversation was over for now, leaving only Phichit and Yuuri in the entryway.

A beat passed, then Phichit spoke. “It doesn’t have to be _you_ ,” he pointed out.

“ _Someone_ has to.”

“But it doesn’t have to be _you_.” Phichit grabbed his arm, tugging him closer in order to whisper. “Do you know how dangerous this is? I see the way you look at him. I see the way he looks at _you_. Yuuri—“

“And how is that?” Yuuri interrupted. His eyes were trained on the floor, unable to look Phichit in the face. It almost hurt how hard his heart started beating, how parched his throat was just from hearing those words. “How does he look at me?” _How do I look at him?_

“Like he wants to devour you.”

A flush rose on Yuuri’s cheeks. He turned away finally, towards the stairs, his foot an inch away from the bottom step when Phichit called out to him one last time.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Yuuri.”

He absolutely did not. And the closer he got to the end of the hall where he knew Viktor was, the less certain he became. Phichit was right—it didn’t have to be _him_ , so why had he volunteered to begin with? Mila would be better suited to the task of comforting her boss, even Plisetsky by virtue of having known him for much longer. All Viktor and Yuuri had between them was a handful of secrets and many more lies, a simmering desire that might end up killing them both.

But there was no time left to think. His hand was on the doorknob, turning it, pushing the door open with a deliberate slowness that made it creak on its hinges.

Viktor didn’t bother standing up. He remained seated on the bed, elbows propped on his knees and chin resting over his folded hands. His eyes were dark and unreadable, flickering as Yuuri entered the room, watching every tentative step closer. He said nothing until the door was closed once again, and even then he kept his voice to a low roll, slipping almost beneath the white noise of the settling house. “Yuuri.” He said the name like a full sentence, heavy with meaning in his mouth. “Did you need something?”

Yuuri spied the far wall, where a small dent was notched into the chipping plaster. Beneath it were the broken remains of a cellphone. “Mila sent me to check on you.”

“And?” Viktor asked, reclining back onto his hands with one fluid move. “How am I?”

Yuuri shrugged. “Did you call Takeda?” he asked instead, stepping around the bed as briskly as he did the question. He snatched the phone and tried to turn it on, wincing when the shattered screen failed to light up after one pathetic spark. There was no salvaging it, so he placed its remains on the window ledge.

“No. His people probably told him the news already,” Viktor said. “I called Yakov—best to let him know myself, before I get into any more trouble.”

Yuuri turned to him, surprised. “You? In trouble?”

“Everyone answers to someone,” Viktor said, his finger making a small circle in the air. “That’s the way the world works. Did you think I was so different?”

“I just—I thought—“ Yuuri struggled to find the right words. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, and yet he could not wrap his head around the thought of Viktor genuinely deferring to someone. Even Yakov Feltsman was more a theoretical figure to Yuuri than a man who could bend Viktor to his will. _But you’re not like me._ “You always seem to do as you like.”

“What I want and what Yakov wants are sometimes the same thing,” Viktor said, “but not always. I’ve been with him for a long time, though, and he usually trusts my judgement. He knows I can get the job done. When he can afford to, he even gives me a pretty long leash.”

Yuuri’s throat was tight. The familiar words were utterly alien in the mouth of someone like Viktor Nikiforov. “And when he can’t?”

“Then I heel just like everybody else.” Viktor sat up with his hand outstretched for Yuuri, who went to him as if being led by an invisible string. His fingers wrapped around Yuuri’s wrist, thumb pressing into the delicate skin and the pulsing network of veins beneath. He dropped a kiss there, then on the side of the palm, then at its center—each one reverent, heated through with his breath.

“And you’re okay with that?” A shiver raced up Yuuri’s spine. 

“I owe him everything,” Viktor said, continuing through his little rain of kisses. One on each knuckle, each fingertip, in the juncture between pointer and thumb. “He took me in, fed me, clothed me, gave me purpose. He built me from the ground up. If it weren’t for him, I would have wandered the streets like so many little lost children in Russia, waiting for the cold to take them or worse. Yakov saved me from all that—the least I could do is bend the knee when asked.”

_How often does he ask?_ Yuuri wanted to know, but he was quickly losing focus. A shivery breath escaped his lips when Viktor sucked at the pulse in his wrist, when the hard edge of teeth scraped against the meat of his palm, when a hot tongue soothed the fringes of his pain. He could barely speak, barely think. The smart thing to do would be to put as many doors and as much distance between them as possible. His job was done, he’d done as Mila asked. Now was the time to pull away, to turn and leave the room lest he forget all the reasons why this was a bad idea in the first place.

Yuuri let himself be tugged down onto the solid seat of Viktor’s lap. A hand traveled up his arm, all the way to the side of his neck; the other curled around his hip. Their faces were so close, almost no distance between them. _Almost_.

Viktor’s lips brushed feather-soft against his in a whisper. “I want you to want me.”

_I do, I do, I do._

“Why?” Yuuri asked instead. His hand rested over Viktor’s chest, and through it he could almost imagine the other man’s heartbeat beating into his skin—into _him_. “Why is this so important to you? Why me?”

“You’re beautiful”—a kiss to the corner of his mouth—“and capable”—then to the other—“and loyal.” Viktor kissed the bow of Yuuri’s lips, finally, but stopped short. Every part of Yuuri trembled with the force of how much he wanted this man, and yet he found himself unable to move closer or away. “I’ve been looking for that all my life. Is it so strange to want to keep you by my side?”

Finally, finally, finally—

Yuuri broke. His shaking fingers threaded through the silk of Viktor’s hair, crossing the chasm of his reluctance to slant their mouths together. He gasped at the taste of Viktor after what seemed like a lifetime but was only days, at the slick heat of their mouths coming together again and again. It was more than enough to make his mind go blank, until nothing was left but the animal of his desire pulsing through his veins and under his skin and in his bones, until he was running wild on instinct.

Under him, Viktor groaned. He opened his mouth up for Yuuri to kiss into, an invitation and offer wrapped up in a single gesture. One that Yuuri took, crushing their lips together even more fervently, their teeth clacking painfully once, twice, before they finally found a rhythm that worked. He ground down into the hardness beginning to swell and fill beneath his hips, his own cock pressed achingly against Viktor’s stomach as the hand on his hip shifted to his lower back. Those long fingers splayed wide, bringing them closer. The other hand cupped the back of his head tenderly, like he was trying to hold water in his palm, like Yuuri was about to slip away between his fingers.

It made Yuuri’s eyes water, the gentleness of it all, and he pulled back with a harsh breath. Viktor chased his lips anyway, landing another kiss before Yuuri was able to hold him still. “Don’t,” he said, voice ragged and wet with emotion. “Don’t do _that_.” _I don’t want that from you._

“Do what?”

“Act like—When we—“ Yuuri motioned with his hand, unable to articulate what he meant. Language always failed him in this way. There was too much to say, no word heavy enough for the weight of all he was feeling. He gritted his teeth with such force that he was surprised they didn’t break, crack down all the way to his jaw so he had an excuse not to keep talking. “When you touch me.” _Don’t act like you care. Don’t, don’t, don’t. Just use me if you’re using me._

“When I touch you,” Viktor murmured, “do you mean like this?” His thumb rubbed small circles beneath Yuuri’s ear, then pressing into the moue of his mouth to draw the lip down. “Or like this?” His other hand slipped underneath Yuuri’s shirt, fingernails scraping along the length of his spine. Yuuri shuddered at the touch, his cock jumping from the unexpected and not wholly unpleasant sensation. “Or like this?” He kissed Yuuri again, drawing Yuuri’s tongue into his mouth to suck on it, biting at his lips until they were red and wet. All the while Yuuri clung to him, feeling like a ship untethered, rocking into Viktor’s lap as wave after wave of desire built up inside of him.

“Yes,” Yuuri said, or begged, it wasn’t clear which. “Yes, yes, all of it.” He clinched his eyes tight as Viktor pulled at his hair, tilting his head up to expose his neck. Soft lips traced down from his chin to the line of his throat, dipped into the hollow where his collarbones met. “I want—I want—“

Suddenly he was being flipped onto his back. He let out a puff of air when he hit the mattress, disoriented for a quick moment as the view in front of him changed and he was staring at the ceiling. Viktor was on his hands and knees, crawling up the length of his body from the foot of the bed—a jungle cat, every inch the predator from the way he rolled his shoulders to the stretch of his neck as he took the sight of Yuuri in. And the eyes, especially, black edging into blue, sharp and dangerous, utterly devouring.

_Phichit was right._

“What do you want, _Yuuri_?” His name was a purr. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.”

_He wanted to be devoured._

Yuuri surged up, seizing him by the shoulders. _You, you, you. I want you so much_. He kissed Viktor with as much intensity as he could muster, a sharp shard of want lodging itself into his stomach and refusing to come unstuck. “You,” he gasped out, almost in disbelief at his own gall. “You, god, its you.”

Before he could say another word, Viktor growled low in his throat, crushing him into the bed for a kiss that nearly stole the breath from him. He hitched Yuuri’s legs up around his waist, bringing the bodies in line with each other as Viktor rolled his hips—the motion filthy, the drag of his cock against Yuuri’s lewd and _oh so good_ and not enough.

“Harder,” he moaned. “Fuck, _harder_.” He clenched his eyes as Viktor did, hands grabbing at his hips. Viktor sat up on his calves and brought Yuuri into his lap, guiding him to arch his back with the motion of their thrusts. But still, he wasn’t satisfied, he wanted more. “Clothes—we need to—clothes—“

He reached up blindly, barely able to open his eyes, and when his fingers found the soft white shirt that Viktor wore he _pulled_. The buttons scattered, clicking softly against the hardwood as they fell under the bed. Viktor’s chest was now exposed, his breath harsh and eyes dark with desire as he watched Yuuri do all this. He divested himself of the shirt completely, along with Yuuri’s, scarcely able to get his pants and underwear down his hips before he was on Yuuri again. His mouth was on Yuuri’s throat, sliding down his chest to suck a dark purple bruise into the newly exposed skin there.

Yuuri could feel a hard cock rubbing up against his thigh and shivered, the unoccupied leg curling up to wrap firmly around Viktor’s torso, pulling him in closer. That is, until a hand dipped into his waistband, tracing the skin there teasingly, a question in every stroke.

Viktor looked up when he noticed, head tilting to the side. “Yuuri?” he asked, and received no answer except for a stiff leg lowering off his chest. He pulled back until their bodies were no longer touching—still close, but no longer molding into each other with the same urgency as before. Softly, then, barely more than a breath, he asked again: “What do you want?”

For Yuuri, the answer hadn’t changed. _You_ , he wanted to say, but it stuck in his throat. He didn’t understand his own reluctance, his own inability to open himself up in that way. He tried again. “Not that. I don’t—“ He bit his lips closed, not sure how much more he should say.

Thankfully, Viktor understood. “Then we won’t,” he said. “Can I keep touching you?” And when Yuuri nodded, he did so gently, so tender that it was painful how much Yuuri wanted him then. Each kiss was a benediction, his skin the altar of worship. Soon, Viktor had slipped off the rest of their clothes and had lain on top of him again, caging him in the frame of his body as they kissed—and kissed—and kissed. Yuuri had never been kissed so many times, and so well, had never before been allowed the pleasure of enjoying someone so close to the most vulnerable parts of himself. 

Yet here was Viktor, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat. What did all of this mean?

The dizzying sensation of kisses halted for a moment. Viktor’s hand was stroking down his side. “I want to taste you,” Viktor told him in no uncertain words. Heat flashed through Yuuri’s body, settling low in his belly. When he nodded, Viktor slid down until he was almost at the foot of the bed. His head rested on Yuuri’s thigh, eyes fixed higher at the flushed red cock straining up into Yuuri’s belly.

His first lick was exploratory, not necessarily tentative, but ready to pull back at the first warning. The second was surer, firmer. By the third, Yuuri was shuddering, his thighs shaking as he gasped, hands scrambling for purchase in Viktor’s hair. That hot mouth enveloped the head of his cock in slick, molten heat which slipped down inch by slow inch until Viktor’s lips strained around the base. “ _Vik—tor_ ,” Yuuri moaned, the name broken in the middle. “Viktor!” Said man only bobbed his head in answer, the suction of his mouth going tighter with each successive downward slide. Yuuri could feel his tongue curling, altering in pressure with each stroke. “Viktor, Viktor, I—“

The hands around his legs tightened, fingernails pinching into the sensitive skin of his inner thighs. But the pain of it only added to the pleasure, which rose, hotter and hotter and hotter with every second. Viktor let out a filthy moan around him, and Yuuri gasped, squirming. His hands tightened in Viktor’s silver hair, pulling him up and off, just in time for him to come. Pleasure crashed into him with all the force of a freight train, turning his vision black for a few moments with the intensity of it, blood pounding in his temples as Viktor finished him off with his hand.

Reeling from the aftershocks of his orgasm, Yuuri was barely cogent when Viktor slid up his body and angled for another kiss. He let his mouth fall open to it, lips parting in tired submission, and could feel Viktor's still-hard cock against his thigh. He glanced down to find it trapped between their bodies, flushed and red and straining. “What about…?”

Viktor took himself in hand, pumping down the length of it. “It won’t take long,” he said, licking his lips as he did. Yuuri reached out to touch him too, hand replacing Viktor’s. “Yes—yes, just like that.” The slickness of his own cum made the motion smooth, Viktor pressing him harder into the mattress with each thrust and groan. Yuuri shivered as he felt the tightening of Viktor’s muscles, all the way from his shoulders to his stomach to his calves, reaching the point when he could let it all go.

Then Viktor’s cock slipped between his thighs, and Yuuri gasped, tightening them involuntarily, which only made Viktor moan louder. Viktor reached down to squeeze his legs together. Yuuri, still pliant and soft, let him, drunk with the feeling of each fevered thrust against his skin and the drag of the cockhead along his thighs, until, finally, Viktor shuddered and stilled above him.

For several long beats they lay there, a tangle of sweaty limbs and sticky skin, their breaths evening out along with their heartbeats. Yuuri felt the heat of the moment pass, settling into something that was not quite awkwardness and not quite ease. He wasn’t sure what to do, had never done something like this before.

Yuuri squirmed beneath Viktor, ready to leave, when the hand on his hip tightened. He looked up and found Viktor watching him. “Stay,” the other man said, serious and quiet, a question and not a command. “Stay.”

Yuuri bit his lip, turning the word over in his head. “Okay,” he whispered just as low. “For now.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence and death; suicide; use of derogatory slurs; graphic depictions of sex.
> 
> [1][Chinilpa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinilpa), literally "people friendly to the Japanese." A derogatory term used by Koreans to refer to Japanophiles, has historical usage with Koreans who collaborated with the Japanese during the imperial reign.
> 
> † Tobata Police Station is a real place in Kitakyushu where several police officers have come under fire for corruption. 
> 
> **
> 
> First of all, I cannot believe all the wonderful things people have made me because of this fic! Your support means everything to me and I'm crying. I love all of you.
> 
> There have been a lot of really amazing artists who have literally taken a piece of my soul for making me art:
> 
> [Paluumin](http://paluumin.tumblr.com) drew me a [gorgeous and sad Yuuri today](http://paluumin.tumblr.com/post/164425849193/i-want-to-go-home-hi-i-binge-read) and I'm crying about it still.
> 
> [Bulteronice](https://butleronice.tumblr.com) made me several [beautiful](https://butleronice.tumblr.com/post/162750623324/boy-am-i-obsessed-with-kintsugi), [amazing](https://butleronice.tumblr.com/post/164025489434/based-on-that-scene-in-chapter-5-of-kintsugi-that), [gorgeous](https://butleronice.tumblr.com/post/162710983339/kintsugi-is-a-great-fic-why-am-i-only-reading) drawings and literally owns my entire ass.
> 
> [Minatu](http://minatu.tumblr.com) is half the reason why this fic even started because of 12th Winter, and I've been BLESST by this [beautiful comic](http://minatu.tumblr.com/post/162761579002/based-on-witchsbanes-kintsugi-chapter-14-my%22) and I cry every day.
> 
> I hope [Tosquinha](http://tosquinha.tumblr.com) knows that I literally died when I saw [these](http://tosquinha.tumblr.com/post/162937710407/kintsugi-doodles-thanks-you-witchsbane-for-the).
> 
> [Faerie--kei](https://faerie--kei.tumblr.com) is literally so talented, please look at her [beautiful Yuuri](https://faerie--kei.tumblr.com/post/163116651653/kintsugi-by-witchsbane-is-such-a-good-read-go) and weep with me.
> 
> [Mumjstkilledaman](http://mumjustkilledaman.tumblr.com) made me this [MOODBOARD](http://mumjustkilledaman.tumblr.com/post/163212414748/yuuri-katsuki-is-a-hitman-burdened-with-a-debt-he) which I love. I love moodboards.
> 
> [Whatshehassaid](http://whatshehassaid.tumblr.com) made me a [fucking playlist](http://whatshehassaid.tumblr.com/post/164166143684/x-based-on-witchsbane-s-kintsugi-which-owns) and I'm crying. This is what it feels like to get a mixtape back in the 90s, tbh.
> 
> [Jaellisme](https://jaellisme.tumblr.com) gave us some [primo mafia boys](https://jaellisme.tumblr.com/post/162781756153/presenting-to-you-feltsman-bratva-from-kintsugi-by).
> 
> And last but not least, I've literally whined to [Domo](http://domokunrainbowkinz.tumblr.com) so much over the course of writing this chapter and she was still kind enough to draw me [my beautiful boys](http://domokunrainbowkinz.tumblr.com/post/164263481217/youre-a-mystery-viktor-said-stepping-closer). 
> 
> If I missed anyone please let me know! But just, thank you so much. I'm crying real tears. 
> 
> Also, there's a couple of references there to two different books that really helped me write this chapter. If you can spot it and name the book, I'll idk write you a drabble or something. They're not exact quotes so...lmao.
> 
> **
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't know what to say other than, here you go lmao. Sorry for the wait. I really have no excuse.
> 
> Enjoy and thank you for your continued support! Your kudos, bookmarks, etc. mean everything to me. I love all your comments and I read them often, because you all are so nice and inspire me to write. Find me at my YOI blog [witchsbane](https://witchsbane.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you wanna chat/ask me questions/etc.! Find out more about my writing and how to keep me plied with coffee by following me there. :)


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